


Rock Me Gently

by enigma731, invisibledaemon



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Endgame, Slow Burn, timeline weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 305,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731, https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledaemon/pseuds/invisibledaemon
Summary: “Sheisour--SheisGamora,” Nebula says. “There is only one Gamora and I know her better than any of you do.” She pauses and glares at Peter, clearly challenging him to protest that. For once, he doesn’t dare. “This Gamora has jumped forward in time nine years, but she is the same person at her core. Just as you are the same despite not having experienced the last five years I did. We are all just--out of sync at the moment.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _You were made for me by the stars above_

Peter’s eyes are on her face, rather than the word, as they have been this entire time. Every time. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t see the word. He is acutely aware of it. But Gamora is the most important thing to him, and he’s never missed an opportunity to study her face; to study her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Her familiar scars. Her cheeks; the lines of them are slightly softer than...well, than the last time he saw her. Or...the other her. The her from--

The screen beeps, a sound that was before always innocuous but now sounds angry. The single word changes to three: _no results found_. 

Peter curls his hand into a fist, but keeps his eyes on Gamora’s picture on the screen when he presses it again, and the words change back to _Searching…_

“That is the dozenth time you’ve tried,” Nebula says from next to him. That is true. She hasn’t pointed it out any of the other times, though. He stays silent, not looking away. “Are you going to do this on every planet we visit?” she continues. 

“Well, I wouldn’t have to,” Peter says through a clenched jaw, “if _somebody_ hadn’t let her get away in the first place.”

“‘Let her get away?’” Nebula sneers, making her voice deeper in a parody of his. It’s something Peter’s heard her do many times before. He _knows_ that Nebula cares about him, that her mockery is simply a part of the way she interacts with everyone who is important to her. But it still stings especially badly right now, with Gamora in the wind and so many things so very uncertain.

“Yeah,” says Peter, aware that this probably isn’t going to lead anywhere good but still unable to stop himself. He’s hardly spoken to anyone about Gamora in the few days since returning to a state of, well, basic existence -- and _that_ is a whole other mindbender he is _not_ going to consider right now -- and they’ve all seemed reluctant to mention her around him as well. So there’s been no discussion aside from the general understanding that they will do whatever it takes to find her, including scanning every damn planet in the galaxy a dozen times. “That is what you did, isn’t it? You were the one with her and you didn’t stop her, so…”

“It was not my choice to make,” says Nebula, her lip curling. “Do not talk about my sister like an animal. She made a choice.”

“I wasn’t--” He breaks off on a frustrated noise when the screen beeps again. He presses it again none too gently, watches the word change; looks into Gamora’s eyes in the picture to try to calm himself down. “I am not talking about her like an animal. I know she made a choice. But she made a scared and panicked choice, Gamora would never normally--”

“This isn’t normal,” Nebula says, her voice harsh but somehow also...almost kind. As kind as her voice ever gets when aimed towards him, which makes this so much worse. “And this isn’t the Gamora you know. This is the Gamora I...knew.”

“Hey!” he says defensively, throwing a glare at her before returning his gaze to the screen. “This Gamora is from a point in time _right_ before I was gonna meet her. I did so know this Gamora.” 

“I know her better,” Nebula insists. “And I would not have been able to stop her even if I’d tried. It would only have made things worse if I had. When Gamora wants to run, she will run.”

“I _know_ that,” Peter snaps. “You might have known her longer, but I know her better than anyone in the universe. She’s my...was… _is_...”

The screen beeps again and, grateful for the distraction despite the continued futility, he moves to reset the search. 

Nebula smacks his hand out of the air. “Nothing will have changed in the past two seconds!”

“You don't know that!” says Peter, his heartbeat speeding up again, the irritation he's been grounding himself in threatening to tip over into anxiety, or worse yet despair. He sets his jaw and digs back into it. “You can't know that! It took two seconds for all of us to come back from -- wherever Thanos sent us!”

“From the dead,” Nebula says sharply, enunciating all of the consonants like the word has the edges of one of her knives. “You were dead. Thanos killed you, like he killed Gamora.”

Peter swallows, the fear and grief roiling in the pit of his stomach again, trying to climb the back of his throat like bile. Nebula is doing that on purpose, he knows, and he also knows that he probably deserves it for baiting her. He glances at her, takes a deep breath, then dives for the holo screen at the exact moment Nebula moves to block him again. He manages to be a split second faster, though, and the search begins again even as Nebula pins his wrist against the console. 

“Hah!” Peter exclaims, pumping his other fist. “Boo-ya!”

Nebula scowls. “Congratulations. You’ve successfully wasted another two minutes.” She shoves his wrist as she lets go of it so he bangs it into the console under the screen, but he doesn’t care about the pain. 

“It’s not a waste if we find her,” he says. His fingers twitch with the urge to touch Gamora’s image on the screen, but he resists; not in front of Nebula. 

“She is not on Xandar,” Nebula says harshly. “Accept that.” 

He grunts. “If we could just get a longer range scanner, we could scan more than just the planet we’re on.” 

“There are maybe ten such scanners in all the galaxy,” Nebula says dismissively. “We’d have more trouble locating one of those than my sister.”

“And you’d just let it run off if we found it anyway,” Peter mumbles. 

Nebula growls and suddenly her mechanical hand is clenched around the lapel of his jacket and her glaring face is inches from his. “Listen, you hairy oaf--”

Before she can start her threat, or finish her insult, the sound of Drax’s voice approaching interrupts her, a few seconds before he and the others come stumbling onto the ship. Nebula shoves him again as she lets go. 

Peter stumbles a bit, the exhaustion of the past few days making his head swim despite the fact that he hasn’t chosen to join the others on their drinking excursion. It’s because he has work to do, he tells himself. Not because Thor was with them, or because the idea of being any less in control of himself than he is at the moment is absolutely terrifying. He’s been avoiding sleep for the same reasons, opting instead to spend the time staring at Gamora’s image on the holo screen and running the search repeatedly anytime they’re within range of a planet. He is _not_ about to let Nebula know that, though, so he quickly grabs onto the edge of the console, steadying himself just as Mantis half-carries Drax through the doorway, Rocket and Groot following behind with just the tiniest bit more coordination.

“Where is the other hairy oaf?” asks Nebula, then shoots a pointed look back at Peter just in case it wasn’t completely obvious to the others that he’s the first one she was referencing.

“Rocket is behind me,” says Drax. He tries to look over his shoulder, but it throws him off balance and he narrowly avoids running into one of the chairs before Mantis manages to steady him again. 

“Not Rocket.” Nebula rolls her eyes. “The _other_ other oaf.”

Groot is the only one of them who isn’t drunk, so he’s actually managing to effortlessly navigate between the furniture and the stumbling idiots despite never taking his eyes off his video game. He does still pause to mutter, “I am Groot.”

“He’s staying here?” Peter asks, surprised and hopeful. “What’s he gonna do on Xandar?”

Rocket belches. “Hopefully get his shit together,” he says. The fur on one of his cheeks is matted, presumably from alcohol that splashed onto it. “I didn’t think anybody could be more screwed up than we are, but he needs therapy or somethin’.” 

Peter’s shoulders sag a little in relief; one less thing he has to deal with now. “Good. There’s not enough room on this ship for him.”

“He has indeed become larger,” Drax says, his voice booming. He’s even more unable -- or unwilling -- to control his volume when he’s drunk. “But I will be sad to see the god-man go.”

“What do you mean, ‘will be?’” Rocket asks. “You already did see him go.”

Drax frowns. “Oh.”

Rocket rolls his eyes. “Go dump him on his bunk,” he tells Mantis through a yawn, “so he can sleep this off.” 

“He is very confused,” Mantis informs them, her antennae aglow. Then she lets out a burp of her own. Peter can hear her giggles as she drags Drax back towards the bunks, Rocket following close behind. 

Groot lingers, even glancing up from his game for a second. His eyes land on the screen where Gamora’s image remains before they fall back to the one in his hands. His fingers aren’t moving on it, though. “I am Groot?” 

“No,” Peter’s forced to admit. He tries to keep his voice casual. “We didn’t find anything yet.” 

Groot’s shoulders tense and he glares down at his game. “I am Groot.” 

Peter tenses in turn, but can think of no reply to _’Not like she’s our Gamora anyway_.’ 

“She is, though,” says Nebula, surprising him. He knows Groot likes Nebula, but for all the times she’s visited them on the Quadrant and accompanied them on jobs throughout the galaxy, she’s hardly ever responded to his obvious adoration. Until now, Peter’s never been sure whether she even understood his language. Actually, he was pretty sure she didn’t, but somehow Nebula never really ceases to surprise him.

Groot gives her a belligerent look that Peter suspects is intended to mask the same surprise he’s just been feeling. “I am Groot.”

“She _is_ our--She _is_ Gamora,” Nebula repeats, the familiar note of petulance in her voice suddenly completely absent, now all sharp-edged determination. “There is only one Gamora and I know her better than any of you do.” She pauses and glares at Peter, clearly challenging him to protest that. For once, he doesn’t dare. “Thanos keeps -- _kept_ my memories on an artificial neural network. He could erase or alter them at will. If he had erased them, altered my experiences, would it make me a different person?” 

Peter scratches the back of his neck, trying to wrap his exhausted mind around that information, and that question. “Yes? No? I don’t know what answer you’re looking for here.” 

Nebula rolls her eyes aggressively. “I should have known you would have no understanding of this.”

“I am Groot?”

“The answer is no,” Nebula says. “This Gamora has jumped forward in time nine years, but she is the same person at her core. Just as you are the same despite not having experienced the last five years I did. We are all just--out of sync at the moment.” 

Groot has an inscrutable look on his face. Peter thinks he might be trying not to cry. He can relate. He has no more response to that than Peter does, so he turns around and trudges towards the bunks as well, looking down at his game, fingers still unmoving. 

Peter rubs his temples. He has no energy or desire to try to wrap his mind around whatever it is Nebula is saying right now. All he knows or cares about is that he has to get Gamora back, in whatever form, whatever it takes. 

And so far he’s failing.

“Damn,” he sighs, dropping down into a chair. The screen is once again informing them that there are ‘no results found,’ but he doesn’t reset it. “I really thought she’d be here.” 

Nebula takes a few steps closer, arms crossed. He’s slumped far enough down in the chair that it feels like she’s looming over him. Although, to be fair, it pretty much always feels like Nebula looms, even when their relative positions put his eyeline above hers. “Why? Because it’s the only other planet you know the name of besides Earth?”

Peter rolls his eyes. He’s known Nebula far too long to take her jabs about his Terran intelligence seriously, but tonight all of his nerves feel stretched to their maximum, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. Which she probably also knows. 

“We both know you know that’s not true,” says Peter, forcing himself to take as deep a breath as possible when it feels like the combination of grief and desperate hope is squeezing every muscle in his core. “Xandar is -- was -- basically home for us.” 

The five years they’ve lost are most evident here, so much that arriving earlier and seeing the surface had felt like a gut punch. A lot of the damage Thanos did has been repaired, but much of it is still painfully evident. Hard to fix sheer devastation with half the population gone as well, he guesses.

“Your home is not her home, idiot,” says Nebula. “Not yet, anyway.”

That stings, but Peter adds that to the thousands of thoughts he’s pushing to the back of his mind. “Sure, but she still knew and liked Xandar before we met. She told me it was the only planet she really liked before that.”

“Yeah, she still knew it,” Nebula says with an eye-roll. “But that doesn’t--” She breaks off very suddenly, eyes drawn to the screen again. He glances back at it, heart leaping, but he frowns when he sees that it hasn’t changed; it still says ‘no results found.’ 

“What?” he asks, because Nebula still hasn’t spoken. She looks thoughtful. Or murderous. It’s difficult to tell with her.

“She might be here after all,” she says simply, then turns on her heel and marches off towards the cockpit.

“ _What?_ ” Peter exclaims, standing up so quickly he nearly trips over his own feet. “Wait--what? But the scan--”

“My sister is more clever than that,” Nebula says. “If you knew her as well as I do, you would know that.” 

“What are you _talking_ about?” Peter snaps as he follows her up the ladder to the cockpit. 

“You will see,” she says, taking the pilot’s seat, _his_ seat. He can’t bring it in himself to protest, though. Not when there’s a fragile thread of hope growing in his chest.

* * *

The woods are both surprisingly cold and surprisingly disconcerting. 

It's hardly as though Peter's never been in a forest at night before, of course. Night is often the best time for stealing, or for doing a Guardians job. He's done this plenty of times. But he's never been _this_ far outside the urban center of Xandar. And there's an added creepy factor from the multitude of ruined, decrepit buildings they'd passed on the way here. Apparently repairs take longer in the boonies. 

He wishes that the others were here, but they're all passed out on the ship, blissfully sleeping off the night's indulgences. So it's just him and Nebula, who's got her cybernetic eye poked all the way out of its socket, broadcasting what looks like a laser grid in an old sci fi movie as she sweeps back and forth across the leaf-covered ground. 

Okay, so that's not helping with the creepy factor either. 

“Anything?” asks Peter for the umpteenth time, then promptly stumbles over a knot of roots and very nearly goes down. 

“Yes,” says Nebula, momentarily making his heart leap, then sink again as she continues, “there's an idiot behind me who keeps asking me the same question over and over.”

“Well, we’ve been at this for hours,” he points out. “Are you sure this is the right forest?” 

“I am sure I’m going to kill you if you ask me any more stupid questions.” She walks quickly, and he’s struggling to keep up after several hours of this, after days of little to no rest. Not that he’s about to let that show. 

“You know, that threat would hold a lot more weight if you didn’t use it five times a day,” he says. “It’s always you’re gonna kill me or you’re gonna sew my face to my genitals. You gotta come up with some new material if you wanna keep it fresh.”

Nebula glares at him, which actually is kind of scary-looking with the whole eye-projection thing she’s got going on. 

“Actually, those threats are fine,” Peter says, deciding that now is not the time to get on her nerves. “Very scary, great job with the threats.” 

Nebula shakes her head, which makes Peter’s heart clench painfully; Gamora shakes her head at him almost the exact same way, only with much more affection. Or...she used to.

“Yes, I am sure,” Nebula says after a few minutes of silence, surprising him. “She told me about this place a couple of years ago. A bunker she used to have for when she had missions on Xandar, hidden from Thanos; from all biometric scanners.” 

He pauses, his knees momentarily feeling even more like jelly than they already did. “She told you--a couple years ago?”

“That is what I said,” says Nebula, contempt clear in her tone again. She doesn’t bother to lift her head toward him, continues scanning the ground. For a moment she stills, focusing on a spot a few feet from the base of a tree. She does something that makes the laser grid zoom in more intensely, and Peter holds his breath. She’s done this a few times already, and he’s gotten the same surge of adrenaline each time. After a moment, though, she shakes her head yet again, then scuffs the toe of her boot against the spot as though it’s deserving of scorn for its failure to contain Gamora. He has to admit that he agrees with that sentiment. 

Peter blows out a breath, willing his pulse to even out again. If Gamora were here, she’d be able to hear how wildly his heart is beating, and then she’d check on him, or touch his shoulder to steady him, or-- He forces those thoughts to the back of his mind too, because she _isn’t_ here and that’s the whole damn point.

“She never told me she had a special super secret bunker,” says Peter, finally finishing his thought from before this latest diversion. 

Nebula shrugs. “She never told you a lot of things.”

He swallows back a painful lump in his throat, as Gamora’s voice rings out in his head: _You promised! You promised._ She never told him where the Soul Stone was. She never even told him she knew, until the day he nearly had to… The day he _failed_ to… 

“Calm down, imbecile,” Nebula says harshly, throwing him a disdainful look. Gamora is not the only one with enhanced hearing, Peter remembers. Nebula is just not inclined to offer him comfort. “Just because I know her better than you do--” 

She doesn’t finish that thought and Peter doesn’t begin to formulate a protest, because she cuts herself off to zoom in on an area of ground again, this time on a patch of it relatively free of tree roots. He holds his breath again and watches the projected scan as if it’s going to tell him anything; he’s not familiar with this grid system, so the changing lines mean nothing to him, but judging from the fact that Nebula suddenly kneels on the ground and begins moving leaves and branches out of the way, she must have found the area of hollow ground she’s been looking for. 

“Did you find it?” he asks anyway, frantically. 

“That should be obvious,” Nebula says. “Are you going to stand there and watch or are you going to help?” 

Despite not knowing what exactly she’s doing, Peter falls to his knees beside her without grace, uncaring of the resulting pain, and begins shoving leaves and dirt around. 

“Look for a handle,” Nebula instructs. 

“A handle?” he repeats, because that seems absurd right now. As far as he can tell, they’re just brushing leaves and dirt off of more dirt. There’s nothing visible to indicate any difference in the surface of this patch of ground from any other. He clears a few more inches before his mind starts getting carried away again, wondering whether this is a trick, yet another moment of cruel hope that will be ripped away. It’s not that he really thinks Nebula wants to hurt him, but the past few days have been such an unexpected, unrelentlessly brutal nightmare that it’s hard to keep the possibility out of his mind. The next thing he knows, his chest is tightening even more and it’s getting harder to breathe.

Ignoring the sensation, he digs faster still, ignoring Nebula’s direction to grab handfuls of dirt instead, like he might be able to get to Gamora with his bare hands alone. _If_ she is even here to be reached. 

A moment later it becomes evident that this tactic won’t work, though, and he hisses in pain as he stubs his fingertips hard against something unyielding. Peter shakes his hand out and tries again; the dirt looks perfectly normal, even has the powdery texture that it should, but it refuses to budge. 

Nebula grabs his wrist and sighs again. “It’s a _bunker._ Do you want to find my sister or would you rather waste time breaking all of your fingers? Ordinarily I would not be opposed to the latter, but…”

“I want to find her!” he says immediately. “But you said--”

“Look for a handle,” Nebula repeats. “Which I did, while you were wasting time.” She projects some kind of tool from one of her cybernetic fingers, sticks it into what appears still to be a perfectly ordinary patch of ground and twists. A moment later, a handle pops up and she grins, triumphant. 

His heart stops. He’s surprised the damn thing still works with how much he’s put it through in the past couple hours alone. “This is it?” he asks, despite knowing the answer. 

Nebula ignores him and pulls on the handle. He hears a rattle but it doesn’t budge. She glares at it and tries again with the same result. 

“Here, let me--” Peter says, reaching for it. 

Nebula slaps his hand away. “I’m stronger than you, idiot. It’s locked.”

“So…” He clenches his hand into the dirt at his side and tries to remember to breathe. “So she’s not in there? Or she’s--trapped?” That last thought makes him panic and he scrabbles for the door handle again, only to have Nebula yet again shove his hand away. 

“It locks from the _inside_.” 

“So--so she must be…” 

He doesn’t have the breath to finish the question and Nebula ignores him anyway, growing yet more tools out of her fingers and inserting them into the area around the handle. 

“Can you open it?” he asks urgently. 

“I recall informing you that any more stupid questions would result in your death,” she says flatly. The tools in her fingers make a _whirr_ sort of sound as they spin and twist. 

“Just--please,” he manages, his voice weak and small. His hands are shaking badly. He’s an expert lock-picker, but he’s pretty sure he’d be as useless as the dirt around them right now even if Nebula would let him help. 

Nebula pauses for a moment, which practically sends him into actual cardiac arrest. But then she meets his gaze, the scanner deactivated now, both eyes back where they belong, which makes her look about as human as she ever gets. There’s also an earnestness in her face that twists something in his chest, threatens to bring tears to his eyes. He swallows painfully.

“If you think for even a moment that I want to find her any less than you do, you are even more of an idiot than I previously believed,” she says finally, though her tone is almost unbearably soft, the most sincere he’s ever heard it.

“Okay,” he breathes, swiping at his cheeks with dirty fingers. “Okay, I know you do.”

“She saved me,” says Nebula. “Twice. Now I _owe_ it to her to do the same.” She doesn’t give him a chance to respond again, sticks a final tool into someplace beside the handle, then yanks open the door.

The part that lifts up is circular and only wide enough for them to slip through one at a time. He can barely make out the top of a ladder leading down into the bunker, and then darkness inside. 

“Gamora!” he calls immediately, the word echoing back unanswered.

He opens his mouth to call again, then promptly finds it blocked by Nebula’s hand.

“Quiet, idiot!” she snaps. “Do you want to make her run again before we even get to talk?”

He shakes his head and remains quiet when Nebula removes her hand. She rubs it off on her pants as though he’s infected it, even though she’s the one who touched _him_. 

And she touches him again, grabbing his arm when he grips the rim of the opening and moves to go through. 

“I’m going first,” she says firmly, giving him a shove to get him out of her way. “She knows me better right now.” 

That makes his chest tighten again but he nods, acknowledging her point. For the brief moments he’d seen her again, Gamora got along much better with Nebula than she did with him. Her boot got along with his balls just fine, though. 

Nebula turns around and starts descending the ladder and he follows behind, having to work harder than usual to keep his coordination. His shaking hands grip the sides of the ladder so hard his knuckles turn white -- probably; it’s so dark he wouldn’t be able to tell anyway. 

It’s farther down than he thought it would be, but after only a few seconds he can make out a light coming from down below. He nearly falls off the ladder; so close, they’re so close, _Gamora_ is so close. 

The floor is visible now; just dirt. In one corner there’s a small lamp, a smaller box, then dirt, more dirt, and then there, on the other side of the tiny room, a thin cot with a figure curled up on it. 

The light is dim, barely enough to illuminate more than a couple of feet in each direction around it. But Peter can still tell instantly that it’s Gamora, would recognize the outline of her body anywhere, can practically feel the way it fits against his, the warmth her skin would have under his fingers. 

But it only takes him another half second to recognize that she’s not moving, and that she really, really should be. At the very least, she should have been able to hear them breaking in, should have raised her head in acknowledgement if she wanted to be found. Or more likely, she should have been on the defensive if she didn’t. Gamora is not a woman who lies prone in stillness, but that’s exactly what she’s doing now, knees pulled up to her chest, one arm thrown over her head as though she’s trying to shield herself from something.

“Gamora,” Peter breathes, this time the sound coming out as barely even a whisper, his mouth suddenly so dry that he can’t even manage to swallow. Nebula is still ahead of him, moving quickly to kneel beside the mattress.

Peter manages only a couple more steps before he finds himself rooted to the spot, too afraid to get any closer, to get the answer to the question he can’t quite get out of his mouth. “Is she -- Is she -- “

“Gamora,” Nebula says insistently, and reaches out to touch her shoulder. 

_Oh god_ , Peter thinks in a panic. What if something happened to her? What if she got hurt during the battle and they didn’t notice and now she’s--

Then she lets out a small groan, and despite the pain in it Peter nearly faints from relief. Since that wouldn’t help Gamora at all, instead he sinks to his knees next to Nebula. “Gamora, sweetheart, are you--”

“Don’t,” she says weakly, unmoving, still shielding her head, “call me that.” 

Peter presses his lips together, hurt, even though he knows this Gamora--no, that Gamora just no longer--

“Are you injured?” Nebula asks, and Peter uses that to re-focus. Right now, his only concern is Gamora’s well-being. 

“My head is splitting,” Gamora says, still in that same small, weak voice. Peter looks around the room again for signs of anything that would help and sees nothing. There are no signs of anything… no signs that she’s eaten, or indeed done anything but lie here for the past few days. 

“We need to get you out of here,” Peter says. Gamora says nothing, and again his instincts take over and he reaches for her, only to be stopped by Nebula yet again. 

“You better let me do it,” she says, her voice not as harsh as it could be. “Remember what happened last time you touched her?” 

As difficult for it is to do nothing, he clenches his hands and stands up so Nebula has more room to lift Gamora carefully into her arms. She’s alive. She’s here. They’re gonna get her out of this miserable place and back _home_ where she belongs. Everything else will follow. It has to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!!! Here we are post-Endgame, and here is our post-Endgame fic! We hope you liked the first chapter, there's gonna be a ton more to come! We're not even gonna pretend we know how long this thing is gonna be. 
> 
> We posted this first chapter on a Monday as a nod to our KTCR tradition, but we're not necessarily going to keep to that pattern for this fic. We're aiming for approximately once a week, but it might vary by a day or two this time around. Don't worry, though, we're writing up a storm. We're already almost done with chapter 2 :) 
> 
> If you liked it, let us know! And come say hi to us on tumblr: 
> 
> Love, 
> 
> [gamoraspeter](https://gamoraspeter.tumblr.com/) and [enigma731](https://enigma731.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ik we said we weren't gonna post consistently every Monday this time, but we had this chapter ready so why not ;)

The last time she was in this much pain, she was ten years old. Thanos was in the midst of disarticulating her spine, replacing it with cybernetics. She'd been awake for that procedure because it had involved removing a part of her brain stem and he had wanted to be aware immediately if he had inadvertently turned her into a mindless vegetable. Plus, she suspects, he had wanted to see her ability to withstand the procedure, to cope with the agony.

Thanos isn't here now, though, or at least she's relatively certain that he's not. A part of her finds that difficult to believe, that he could ever truly be stopped, that she could ever truly be free of him. That any sacrifices she or Nebula or anyone else might have made could make a difference, no matter what anyone might say about the future. 

The present isn't very clear now either, though. The only things she's truly aware of are the pain -- a blinding, splitting throb that starts in the back of her head and radiates down her spine -- and the cold. She's used to the cold of Sanctuary; of dark, dank metal all around and minimal life support systems. But this is something else entirely, an all-consuming chill that seems to run through her blood, sends convulsive shivers through her despite the fact that she's in too much pain to move otherwise. 

Time passes. Her sister is here. Or Gamora thinks she is. It’s hard to tell what’s real. Sometimes she thinks she sees flashes of orange, an orange that seems like--a memory, somehow. Strange, since it’s only a color. 

That man is with her too. The one she doesn’t know, but also does. She’s aware enough to hear what he calls her. No one calls her things like that. She summons up as much energy as she can to protest. 

She’s dimly aware of her sister touching her before she blacks out. 

The next thing she’s aware of is a sharp prick in her arm, a stinging sensation that might otherwise be painful if it weren’t a drop in the ocean. She has no energy to fight it. Besides, the only person to ever stick something in her arm like this was Thanos, during longer operations. This must be him now. It seems fitting. All of it was just a trick, a test of her loyalty that she failed and is now being punished for. 

But then why is the pain getting better? It’s not gone, not completely, but it’s no longer blinding. Some of the tension in her body uncoils, and the relief is so acute she falls back asleep.

* * *

The others are still in various states of sleep or drunken unconsciousness, so using a bunk is out of the question. The last thing Gamora needs is to be woken up by Drax’s thunderous snoring, or Rocket slurring curses in his sleep.

Instead, Nebula lays her carefully on the table that serves sometimes as a dining space, others as a makeshift clinic, still others as the spot where they work out whatever plan a job requires. It’s not lost on him that Thor was on this same table what feels like a few short days ago. Though, Peter reminds himself, it was actually years. It’s been _years_ since they’d responded to the Asgardian distress call, since Knowhere, since Gamora--

Peter clamps down his jaw until the muscles ache and it feels as though his teeth might crack. Thinking about that now will _not_ help her. Or… _this_ her, anyway, because it’s too late now to do anything else, to truly fix his failings. 

“Is she okay?” asks Peter, as Nebula finishes hanging an IV bag and Gamora’s body relaxes visibly, either asleep or unconscious. She hasn’t been coherent enough to talk or really interact at all since they left the bunker, but it was clear the entire time that she was in excruciating pain, worse than he’s ever seen her.

Nebula turns and fixes him with a disdainful glare. “Does she _look_ okay to you?”

He looks at Gamora, lying prone on the table. She looks exhausted. Miserable. Her cheeks are noticeably sunken, there are bags under her eyes, her hair is tangled. There are even a couple of twigs and leaves in it that she hasn’t been able to or hasn’t bothered to remove. 

She’d told him early on that her hair is one of the few things about herself that she’s always liked. She hates it to be messy. He reaches out and picks out the ones that are easy to remove, not wanting to risk disturbing her sleep. That seems unlikely to happen, but apparently now she hates him touching her, so. Best not to risk it, he supposes. 

She’s still the most gorgeous woman he’s ever seen. 

“No,” he admits, fiddling absently with a leaf. “Why? Why is she--?”

“It has to be a mod,” Nebula says. “Malfunctioning. Probably damaged in battle. Mine used to do it all the time. My father would make me suffer through it until I passed out from the pain.”

“So you can fix it!” Peter says, hope thrumming up in his chest. “You can help her!”

“Most likely,” Nebula says, then does not move. 

“Are you waiting for an audience?” Peter asks, perplexed. “Some background music? I can get you some of that.” 

Nebula’s look gets somehow more murderous than before. “I am not going to operate on my sister without her permission.” 

Peter blinks, looking back and forth between her and Gamora. It’s clear that whatever sedative Nebula gave her must be working, because her face isn’t quite so lined with pain. She still looks in awful shape, though, and he can’t help but picture her on Vormir, trying and failing to fight Thanos for the Soul Stone. He can only imagine how utterly, hopelessly outmatched she must have been, without her team, without her sword, without-- He forces himself to banish those images, to remember that _this_ Gamora never experienced those things. He isn’t entirely sure whether that’s good or bad, feels the panic threaten to climb up in his chest again if he thinks about it too much. 

Instead he turns back to Nebula. “Why the hell not? It’s hurting her, and you’re just gonna let--” He breaks off, narrowing his eyes as a new thought occurs to him. “Wait. Do you _want_ her to be in pain? Is that part of your weird rivalry thing? Gotta torture her just a little while you’re--”

“Shut _up_!” Nebula snaps, slapping a hand over his mouth so fast and so hard that it makes him stumble back against the bulkhead behind him. 

She looks murderous. Like, really murderous. For the first time in years, he feels like Nebula might actually hurt him. Her hand is clamped over his mouth, squeezing at the sides, in a way that hurts but won’t cause real damage. Yet. 

Now that his focus has been forced off Gamora, he can finally see the pain in Nebula’s eyes, etched on her face. Probably the same way he looks. 

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Nebula hisses, “tell me I want my sister to be in pain.” 

He tries to convey his apology with his eyes, since she won’t exactly let him use his mouth, but her hand doesn’t budge. After a few tense seconds, she continues, “I shouldn’t expect you to understand. But having body modifications is violation enough. I am not about to violate her further by operating on them without her even knowing. That is something my father would do.”

Peter has no regret for wanting to ease Gamora’s suffering, but guilt surges through him at that. Nebula has a point. Gamora, especially a Gamora from four--no, nine--years in the past, would probably not appreciate someone messing with her body mods, even if it was to help her. He nods. Still, Nebula keeps her hand where it is. 

“You are not the only one here who loves Gamora,” she says fiercely. “So you had better stop acting like you are.” 

“Okay,” he mouths, when her hand loosens just a bit. The word gets lost against her palm and he can’t help remembering the last time Gamora did this to him, when she’d made him promise-- “Okay.”

Nebula glares at him the whole time as she pulls her hand away and takes a step back. It’s all he can do not to collapse to the ground when she lets him go, his knees loose and his legs feeling like jelly. He grabs one of the chairs from around the table and turns it around before sitting down hard, his chin rested on the back of it. His eyes blur with tears and he screws them shut, trying to will the emotions back down. The last thing he wants to do right now is cry in front of Nebula, so he keeps them closed, focuses instead on how his own head is throbbing, how his knees hurt from where he’d landed on them in the woods.

For the first time in a few days, he actually _wants_ to let the exhaustion take over, to be unconscious for a few hours and not have to _feel_ anything, worry about anything. To have a few hours where he’s incapable of screwing anything else up. Of course now that he wants it, it won’t come. He keeps his eyes closed anyway, letting time slip by as he listens to the sound of his own harsh breathing. 

He loses track of how long it is before he’s disturbed by a hand on his shoulder, so deceptively gentle that every instinct he has insists that it must be Gamora. It feels like a punch to the gut when he looks up and finds Nebula standing over him instead, holding a cup of what looks like electrolyte mix.

Her lip curls and she rolls her eyes. “Take this and drink it. Don’t make me stick a needle in your arm too.”

He takes it slowly, his grip significantly weaker than usual. “Thank you,” he says, his voice rough. He might have dozed off slightly after all, because the ship’s day cycle has started. “How long was I out?”

“A couple of hours,” Nebula says. She glares at him, and it takes him a moment to figure out it’s because he’s not drinking. He takes a tiny sip, even though just the thought of any kind of food makes him feel nauseous. He’s no good to Gamora if he passes out too, though. 

He looks over at her, still lying on the table, asleep. She looks slightly less miserable, he thinks. She was most likely dehydrated before, on top of whatever is wrong with her mods. Even after four years, she was always much better at taking care of others than at doing the same for herself. A Gamora without those years of growth…

“How is she?” he asks, not expecting any news, but feeling the need to ask anyway. 

“Stirring,” Nebula answers, and Peter stands up so quickly he spills some of the drink down his chin and onto his shirt. 

“She’s waking up?” he whispers, hurrying over to her side. She looks like she’s still asleep, but closer up he notices that her eyelids flutter every once in a while. As she watches, her head turns slightly. 

“Apparently,” Nebula says, standing beside him. “Better not let your hairy face be the first thing she sees when she does.” 

“Hey!” says Peter, wiping his chin with the back of a hand. “She likes my face! And my beard. The last time I shaved it, she--”

“ _She_ doesn’t know you yet,” Nebula hisses. “She doesn’t know any of us except for me, and even me only a little. Her entire _world_ is gone and her body is failing her, and you want to talk about your _beard_?”

“I just--” Peter takes a shaky breath, blows it out. Then he takes another sip of the drink, swallowing this one more slowly, as though the liquid might somehow be able to quell the adrenaline that’s begun to rush again, the mix of defensiveness and desperation that he’s feeling. “I just want to help her.”

“Then stop _talking_ about her like she isn’t _here_ ,” Gamora says from the table, which nearly makes the cup fall right out of his hand. Her eyes are open now, though not entirely clear. Her voice is still small and a bit hoarse, but so undeniably _hers_ that it’s all he can do not to break down immediately. 

“Sorry,” Nebula tells her. Then she nods over her shoulder. “This is Peter. I forgot to mention that kicking him in the nuts does absolutely nothing to teach him a lesson.”

Gamora’s eyes land on him, a little more focused now. He’s got to remember how to breathe. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again because forming words is next to impossible right now; almost as impossible as it is to stop staring at her. God, when he was...un-dusted...he thought he’d never see her again. He never imagined circumstances like this that would make it possible. But they’re here. She’s here. 

And she’s staring at him with none of the warmth he’s been used to. 

“Sorry,” he finally manages, mouth dry. Her face is somewhere between blank and suspicious. 

“There is something wrong with one of your mods,” Nebula says, and Gamora’s eyes slide off him. He misses her gaze, as disconcerting as is to have her look at him so differently. 

“I know,” Gamora says, sounding almost bored. “It’s my brain stem regulator.” 

“Your _brain_ \--?” Peter gasps, horrified. Surely that’s like, the worst place to have a mod malfunction. “It’s in your _brain_?”

Both she and Nebula throw him disdainful glances. “That is what she just said,” Nebula says, then turns back to Gamora. “I can fix it, if you will let me.” 

Gamora looks at her; trying to focus her eyes, Peter thinks, among other things. He can tell she’s still in a tremendous amount of pain, but it’s lessened enough that she can push it down, ignore it. She’s always been so strong. 

“The last I knew of you,” says Gamora, “you would have given anything to best me in battle. _You_ would have been the one who sabotaged my modifications yourself if you could manage it, because you would have needed every advantage you could get.”

Nebula flinches visibly, but she doesn’t protest. “Yes. The old me. The one who believed she was only what _he_ created.”

“And you want me to believe that isn’t the person standing in front of me right now?” Gamora tries to sit up, hissing in pain after only half a second and falling back against the table. She stays like that for a few beats, her chest heaving with rapid breaths. Then she moves again, sitting up with a ragged groan of effort that sounds like she might be lifting some sort of giant boulder rather than just her own body.

“Hey,” says Peter, taking an instinctive step forward to put a hand behind her back, then freezing and flinching away again when he sees every one of her muscles go taut. It isn’t that he’s afraid of her -- she could hurt him all she wanted and he’d thank her for the opportunity right now -- but he certainly doesn’t want to make her expend any more of her limited strength.

“You also told me that you tried to kill me several times,” Gamora continues, still addressing only Nebula. “How am I to know that this isn’t all some elaborate ruse to get into my brain?”

“You were just unconscious for the whole night,” Peter says, which finally makes Gamora look at him again. She’s glaring at him, of course, as if angry that he pointed this out. “Nebula even said she wasn’t gonna fix your mods without your permission, even though she had all the opportunity in the world.”

Gamora looks at Nebula; for confirmation, he thinks. She nods. “I killed myself to save you. Why would I hurt you now?”

“You did what?” Peter asks, thrown. He’s ignored, as the sisters have some sort of stare-down. He supposes if Gamora had traveled through time with Thanos to get here, it only makes sense that a past Nebula was with them as well. He’s still not completely clear on everything that happened. He’s not really sure he wants to be right now, anyway. 

“Okay,” Gamora says, knocking those thoughts out of him. She’s looking at Nebula, her face a lot more open than it is when she looks at him. He tries, and fails, not to let that sting. “But I want to be awake.”

“ _What_?” Peter exclaims, unable to stop himself. “Isn’t that gonna hurt?”

Nebula’s lip curls again as she looks at him. “No. I’m going to insert a tool into the base of her skull and it’s just going to tickle a little bit.” 

“Oh,” says Peter, feeling a momentary wave of relief at that. The last thing he wants is for Gamora to be in more pain. “Well that’s good.” He would think that cutting into the base of her skull would--

“That was _sarcasm_ ,” Gamora growls, rolling her eyes at him. 

Peter glances back at Nebula and finds an expression of equal exasperation on her face. He feels his cheeks grow hot, feels utterly useless for the millionth time. It’s not as though he’s ever been able to _entirely_ convince himself that he deserved Gamora, but he certainly doesn’t feel that way now. Suddenly the fact that he’d ever gotten to have even a few good years with her feels like a miracle, any hope of getting more an impossibility. 

“I want to be awake,” Gamora repeats, her focus back on Nebula now, as though he doesn’t even exist. “And I keep my weapons. That is the only way I will agree to let you do this.”

Nebula sighs, then points. “Your weapons are still on you, in case you hadn’t noticed. Though the likelihood of you being able to lift your sword now let alone with my fingers inside of your brain is laughable.”

“I don’t care.” Gamora gathers her hair into a rough knot, tying it it through itself to expose the back of her neck, the familiar silver scar at the base of her neck. “That is the way it is going to be.”

“Okay, you win,” Peter says, figuring that will appease her. She ignores him. 

“Fine,” Nebula says flatly. He doesn’t miss the fact that she grows the tools out of her hands where Gamora can plainly see them, though, before moving around to stand behind her. She throws a glare at him. “You better stay out of my way.”

He holds his hands up in surrender. Not like he’d have any idea how to help with this kind of thing. He’s not sure he really wants to see what she’s about to do anyway. Still, he’s not about to go far. So he grabs the chair he’d been using before and drags it closer, once again sitting in it backwards, close enough that she could theoretically reach out and touch him. Not that he thinks she would. He’s definitely not hoping she’ll reach out to hold his hand for comfort, like she would have...or, will have? Would-will have?...once. 

Nebula had to do this once, to...his Gamora. It was way more minor than this, but still traumatic to have her mods worked on. But he’d held her hand through it, talked to her, distracted her. Kissed her on the head when it was done. All things he can’t do for her now. 

Well, maybe not all. 

“Lie down,” Nebula orders, picking up a small blow torch she’s pulled from one of Rocket’s toolboxes and running it over the fingers she’s adapted into tools. Peter can’t quite help wincing at that, his brain taking a second to catch up and realize that she’s sterilizing it. 

Gamora inhales sharply, though, looks for a moment like she wants to reach out and stop Nebula. She composes herself just as quickly, though, the concern replaced by an expression of sharp curiosity. 

She nods toward Nebula’s hand. “That’s new.”

“To you, maybe,” says Nebula. “I have been this way for years.”

Gamora shrugs, though Peter knows her well enough to catch the miniscule tremor that runs through her, betrays how unsettled she is by that statement. “Care to tell me what happened? Since you want me to trust you.”

Nebula hesitates, and Peter can practically see her weighing the pros and cons of this, making the most strategic choice possible. Nebula may not have been Thanos’s favorite daughter, but she still has all of his training. 

“You were fighting Ronan,” she says at last. “He was trying to use the Power Stone to destroy Xandar. I was...fighting against you.” Nebula huffs out a breath, and it’s not quite clear whether the emotion behind it is exasperation or regret. 

“Just...against me?” Gamora arches an eyebrow. “Not _for_ him?”

Nebula raises an eyebrow back until Gamora nods, some kind of silent understanding passing between them. “Right.” 

“You won,” Nebula informs her. Gamora looks surprised, though Peter doubts it’s from that information; more because in the time Gamora came from, Nebula would never have admitted that. “I was hanging off the side of the Dark Aster above Xandar. My hand was stuck. You offered your hand to help me up, and I cut mine off rather than accept it.” 

Peter knows this story, of course. Gamora had told him not long after it happened, back before they had spoken about their thing, when their bond was still forming. When the team was new and relatively fragile. 

Gamora nods slowly, and after a pregnant pause, lies down on her stomach, her chin resting on her arms. She’s facing him now. Peter offers her what he hopes is a reassuring smile and she looks at him, unimpressed.

Then something occurs to him and he can’t help but blurt it out, his already frail brain-to-mouth filter frayed more than usual. “Hey, that would be happening about now for you. If you were...you know.” 

He regrets it as soon as he says it. Both because Gamora looks even less impressed than before, and because thinking about that makes his heart race, as he remembers that the Gamora in front of him will never experience that. 

He doesn’t get a chance to think about it too hard, though, because the next thing he knows, Nebula is swabbing the back of this Gamora’s neck with some sort of antiseptic, which makes her shiver.

“You want a blanket?” Peter asks immediately, partly to distract himself and partly because he still feels desperate to help her in absolutely any way possible. Even if she’s different. Even if there’s _nothing_ he can do now to help the Gamora he lost. 

“Not while I’m operating,” says Nebula, and doesn’t give either of them any more chance to respond before she unsheathes what appears to be a scalpel blade from one of her fingers and cuts a neat slit right through the silver of Gamora’s scar.

She inhales sharply, grits her teeth but doesn’t make any other sound of pain or fear. “Blankets are a luxury I do not require.”

“Right,” says Peter, remembering suddenly how it had been after the Kyln, when Gamora had first been with them on the Milano. How she’d balked at the idea of even taking one of the bunks, had eventually admitted to the fact that she was accustomed to sleeping on the floor. This Gamora is _that_ all over again, he realizes, and immediately resolves to make up the most comfortable bunk possible for her just as soon as this procedure is over.

For now, he’s got to help her in any way he can. And he’s only got the one way. 

“You know,” he says, trying to sound as casual as possible. “A couple years ago...Or, no, I guess it was more than a couple of years ago now…” He trails off thoughtfully. It’s still difficult to wrap his mind around the fact that he missed five years. Gamora is looking at him impatiently, though, one of her hands gripping the edge of the table hard, so he shakes his head to get those thoughts out.

“However long ago it was,” he continues, “Nebula had to do this for you, after you got hurt on a mission. It was in your spine, but it wasn’t this bad.”

Gamora is silent as she looks at him, still suspicious. It’s like a knife through his heart to see her look at him this way. He’s so used to her looking at him with nothing but love. Well, and sometimes annoyance; exasperation; anger. But always with love underlying those emotions. Now he’s basically a stranger to her. 

He keeps talking, unable to stop now that he’s started. “It was kind of a small job. We were just flying along side this medical ship, protecting it as it transported some kind of medicine. But this was before we were consistently getting bigger jobs, so--”

“We were--protecting it?” Gamora asks, her voice earnest and intense, even as she winces in response to whatever Nebula is doing back there. 

“Well, yeah,” Peter says, glancing at Nebula. She’s concentrating on her task, doesn’t look up. “Didn’t Nebula tell you what we do?” 

Gamora shrugs a bit, then has to pause, her face twisting into a fresh contortion of pain as Nebula adjusts something. There are a few soft pops and then a spasm in her spine that Peter can actually _see_. She still doesn’t cry out, though, just hisses through her teeth, then takes a few shaky breaths as it appears to abate a bit. “She said we were heroes, whatever that means. Guardians. It wasn’t like we had all the time in the world to talk.”

“Right,” says Peter, trying to picture that. They’d been on Thanos’s ship, he knows, and then on the battlefield. It’s kind of a miracle that they got any talking done at all. “Right, yeah. So we do--good things. Like saving the galaxy sometimes! But most of the time it’s more boring stuff, like the job I was telling you about.”

“Protecting the medical ship?” she asks, her fingers digging even harder at the edge of the table as Nebula continues working. She’s going to damage them at this rate, he thinks. Or maybe the table.

“Yeah,” he continues, resisting the urge to reach for her hands. At least she’s talking to him now. “Well, turns out it _wasn’t_ such a boring job, ‘cause there was a big drug cartel after the meds on the ship. But we didn’t know that, so we were all kinda...zoned out. Except you. You saw the attack coming and were ready in time when the rest of us weren’t. That save was all yours.”

“So I got hurt because the rest of you were not being vigilant?” Gamora asks.

He feels a fresh surge of guilt at that. At least that gives him some variety; this is something he hasn’t felt guilty about since the immediate aftermath of it. 

“Yes,” he says, then clears his throat. “You saved all our asses, but a shot grazed your back towards the end of the fight. I shot the shit outta the guy who did it, though.” 

“Good for you,” Gamora says, strained. There’s some kind of quiet mechanical sound coming from Nebula’s hand. 

“It was still all thanks to you,” he adds quickly. “You were kicking ass. The doctors on the ship kept shaking your hand. I thought they were gonna worship you as their new goddess.” 

She gives him a strange look, like she doesn’t quite believe him. Gamora at the time had been perplexed by the behavior, but flattered, though he knows she hadn’t wanted to show that. “Why are you telling me this?” she asks. 

“Seemed relevant,” he mutters. He racks his mind for something else to tell her, since this clearly isn’t distracting enough. He could just shut up, but if he shut up that would mean he’d have nothing to do but _think_ and if he thinks right now he’s pretty sure he’ll explode or cry or both. 

“How much longer is this going to take?” asks Gamora. She’s aiming her tone at impatience, but Peter knows her well enough to hear the pain and anxiety in it. Something that Nebula is doing is causing a little bit of smoke to rise and he’s reminded yet again that this work is being done on her _brain_ , that if something goes wrong, it could do a lot worse than cause her discomfort. 

“A few more minutes,” says Nebula. “This is delicate. You do _not_ want to rush me.”

“I can tell you another story!” Peter says quickly. He’s aware that his attempts to help her so far haven’t really landed, but that’s not gonna make him stop trying. He has another sudden flash of memory -- Gamora after the battle on Xandar, telling him that she had no intention of doing anything to treat her wounds, that she would simply wait out the pain until her enhanced healing took care of them. That she had never had or trusted another person to patch her up. That’s true for this Gamora too, he realizes.

“Go on,” she orders, a tiny wounded sound slipping out as Nebula pulls one tool out of her neck and begins working with another. “Go on already if you’re going to.”

“Okay!” says Peter, bolstered by even that much acquiescence from her. At this point he’ll take pretty much anything that isn’t another kick to the balls. “Okay, so on our first mission together, I saved the galaxy with a dance off!”

“You did...what with what?” Gamora asks. Her expression has smoothed slightly from pain to sheer confusion, which hey, that’s an improvement! He’ll totally take it. 

“A dance off!” he repeats. “It was right after Nebula cut her hand off just to be dramatic.” He glances at Nebula, who doesn’t take the bait. Which is probably a good thing, since she needs to concentrate. “When we were fighting Ronan back on the ground, on Xandar. He had the Power Stone…” 

He pauses, swallowing at the thought of the stones. But he quickly shoves that thought to the back of his mind. He’s gonna run out of room back there. 

“We totally failed to overpower him,” Peter continues, like he’s just telling this story again for the millionth time, like he did after it happened, to anyone who would listen. “We were all pretty hurt, so I did the only thing I could do: I distracted him with one of my many skills!” 

“So you...danced for him?” Gamora asks. She winces, but she’s still looking at him, really listening, and that feels like way more of a victory than it perhaps should. “How did that distract him? Were you trying to seduce him?” 

“What?” he asks, choking on his own surprise. Nebula actually smirks, despite keeping her eyes on her task. “What--no, I wasn’t trying to _seduce_ him. He was a genocidal maniac. Why do you always think my dancing is some kind of seduction?” 

Gamora blinks at him. “Well _I_ certainly would not be seduced by it,” she says dismissively.

Nebula still doesn’t look up or otherwise get distracted, but her lips twitch unmistakably. The irony of that statement and the fact that she’s clearly recognized it are enough to make Peter smile too. Actually he feels on the verge of laughing hysterically, all of the emotions he’s been shoving down trying to push their way back up yet again. He’s aware enough to know that that would be a very bad thing to do, both in terms of winning this Gamora’s trust and in terms of Nebula being able to complete the operation safely. It’s enough to tamp down on his laughter, but apparently not enough to keep the expression entirely off his face.

“What?” asks Gamora. She breaks off as Nebula extracts yet another tool, this time holding what appears to be a melted piece of metal with a fragment of charred tissue stuck to it. She curses under her breath, then turns her attention back to Peter. “ _What_?”

“Well, you were,” says Nebula placidly. “I did tell you he is the one you fall in love with.”

“I don’t believe you,” Gamora insists. “About the seduction, in any case.”

Peter feels a little thrill at the fact that she hasn’t outright denied the _other_ part of that, though even he isn’t delusional enough to think that means she loves him right now. Still… “The first time I danced with you, you called it ‘pelvic sorcery!’” He skips the part about her almost kissing him, though. She does still have her sword after all.

“I would never say that,” she says dismissively. “That is a nonsense term.” 

“Well, you did,” Peter says, amused. She sounds just like...well, like herself, he supposes. 

“That was _not_ me,” Gamora says, voice suddenly so fierce that it wipes the near-smile right off his face. 

Mercifully, he doesn’t have time to properly be devastated by that denial, or even begin to figure out how to argue time travel semantics with her, because Nebula distracts them both from this distraction. 

“I’m almost done,” she says. “I just have to reset the regulator, so be prepared for--”

“I know,” Gamora says quickly. She grips the sides of the table with both hands and clenches her jaw. 

“Be prepared for what?” Peter asks, confused. 

He gets his answer a second later, when Nebula does something that makes Gamora’s entire body convulse on the table, like she’s just been shocked. It only lasts a second, but it looks so painful, so dangerous, that it makes Peter leap out of his chair, knocking it to the ground. 

“Gamora!” he says urgently, hovering near her, ready to...He doesn’t know. Not like he could take her into his arms to comfort her, but he feels like he needs to do something. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” she says, sounding a mix between utterly exhausted and angry. She sits up a moment later, though, her movements clearly smoother than prior to the procedure. She still seems weak, but no longer like she’s fighting against her own body.

“How’s your head?” asks Peter, remembering the way she’d been clutching it in the bunker and what she’d said. 

“Fantastic,” says Gamora, though this time the sarcasm in _her_ tone is perfectly evident. She pulls her hair out of its knot and lets it fall around her shoulders again, then runs her fingers through it. She makes a face of disgust at the tangles and remaining bits of debris in it, and it’s such an utterly familiar gesture that for a second Peter is certain he’s going to cry.

“Well,” says Nebula, “you are no longer in danger of your nervous system overloading and snapping your spine or stopping your heart. You’re welcome.”

Gamora glares at her, but then something shifts, softens ever so subtly in her face. “Thank you,” she breathes, scarcely more than a whisper. “It is much better.”

“I imagine you’ll want more pain medication,” says Nebula, moving toward the kit where they keep their supply. 

“And something to eat!” Peter supplies, remembering the distinct lack of food in the bunker. Knowing what he knows about Thanos, it’s not like she would have had an excess of rations even before getting pulled through time. 

“And a real bunk,” Nebula says pointedly, fixing the table with a look that says it’s utterly inferior.

“I am _fine,_ ” Gamora interrupts sharply, “without any of those things.”

Nebula stares her down, then looks back up at Peter. “She _will_ need a bunk and some rations. Why don’t you go get that ready for her?”

“Yes, okay!” he says, eager to have some tangible way to help her. He’s taken exactly three steps when he pauses and looks back at Gamora and Nebula, who are having a glaring contest. Going to set that stuff up means not being in the same room as Gamora, and the idea of that makes him vaguely nauseous. 

When he doesn’t move for a few seconds, the sisters both look over at him at the same time. It’s almost eerie. They can both hear his heartbeat, he realizes. This Gamora...Gamora...doesn’t know he knows that. She didn’t tell him for months after they met that her hearing is good enough to pick up his heartbeat. That she’d long ago learned to tune that kind of noise out, but with him...she liked being able to hear it. 

She looks only irritated now, though. As does Nebula, who says, “Well? Are you going to help or just stand there?” 

“Right, yeah,” he says, then clears his throat and forces himself to leave the room. It’s probably good to give Gamora and Nebula some alone time, anyway. Nebula is the only person Gamora really knows right now. But she _is_ still Gamora, obviously. Or...a Gamora. Gamora from a different point in time. 

The point is, he’s going to help her in any way he can, regardless of where she came from or how she currently feels about him. If he thinks about anything but the present moment, it makes him want to barf or cry or pass out or all three. 

He makes it all the way to the door of the captain's quarters before realizing that this might not be such an easy way to help her either. Sure, it's a tangible direction, but it's also...their room. The one he shared with Gamora -- the one who unabashedly loved him. Who is dead now, and who was so very different from the woman who is here today. 

He hasn't been into the captain's quarters since before Titan. Since just after Knowhere, actually. Which he guesses means that nobody has in the past five years. He knows neither Rocket nor Nebula claimed it after...after. He pauses outside the doors, considering whether it might be better to just leave this sealed up like a tomb and put her in one of the other bunks. They do have several extras here, unlike on the Milano. 

But those don't have doors that close and they aren't as comfortable. He'd offered his own bunk to Gamora when he'd first met her, because it was the best one on the ship and he'd wanted her to have it even though -- Even though she wasn't even a friend yet then, either. More than anything else, he wants to give Gamora the kindness that he knows she's never had before in her life. 

He takes a deep breath and shoves the door open. 

It looks just how he remembers leaving it. It’s small, nothing but a bed that’s slightly larger than the others on the ship, a nightstand, a tiny closet and a tinier fridge. There’s a pair of Gamora’s shoes by the door, one of his jackets is hanging on the closet door. When his eyes hit the nightstand he nearly has a heart attack; there’s Gamora’s… _his_ Gamora’s… Godslayer, right where he left it. He’d picked it up on Knowhere after…

That’s kind of weird, now that he thinks about it, because he doesn’t like thinking about that other stuff. It doesn’t look like five years have passed in here. He kind of expected everything to look older, though he doesn’t know how. He supposes that’s not realistic. But still, there should be dust, at least. And he’s pretty sure he didn’t make the bed last time he left, actually. He sent Drax in here to grab his dark jacket for Stark’s funeral…maybe he tidied up? He dismisses that thought immediately. 

Then he thinks of Rocket wearing his scarf. Either he or Nebula probably kept this room clean...kept it exactly as it was on purpose. He certainly would have, if he had been…

He shakes his head, swiping angrily at his eyes when he realizes a few tears have escaped. He cannot break down right now. Gamora needs him. And Nebula said this was the same Gamora. Though she’d also said she knows this Gamora better than he does, so she’s probably just as confused and conflicted about all of this as he is. 

He’s expected to have more to do in here, pictured the sheets rumpled from the morning before they’d received that fateful distress call, dirty clothes discarded on the bed, perhaps even dishes from breakfast lying around. All of those things feel like they happened about five minutes ago, and for a moment he feels as though he’s the one who’s left his entire reality behind somehow.

The bed is made, and the sheets even look laundered. Leaning down, he lifts the corner of the bedspread and sniffs, nodding when all he smells is clean linen. So she’ll have a bed to sleep in, at least. 

The refrigerator is empty, which is probably for the best; anything in there would have been five years old. He does want to offer her something to eat, but he doesn’t want to leave the room and go even farther away when Nebula might be bringing her in here any minute. 

Instead he picks up the Godslayer and runs his fingers over the hilt, then carries it over to the closet. He’ll have to show it to this Gamora at some point, he thinks, but he’s pretty sure the weirdness of that right now would only make her want to bolt again. Opening the closet door, he sets the sword on the shelf, then turns his attention to the clothes. Gamora will probably want something more comfortable to sleep in, he thinks. In fact, he distinctly remembers her telling him that she hated the top she currently has on, that it was chosen for her by Thanos.

He grabs one of his old t-shirts that smells clean and has only a couple of holes in it, along with a pair of soft black leggings that he knows she used to like to wear to bed. He turns to close the door, then freezes. All at once, he becomes aware of the scent of leather from one of Gamora’s jackets that’s still hanging there in front of him, mixed with the barest hint of one of her perfumes. Grief hits him in a rush so sudden that it nearly makes his knees give out. He sucks in a breath and slams the closet door closed, completely unable to control the tears that are slipping out again. 

Then he turns back to the rest of the room, just to find Nebula and Gamora finally standing in the doorway.

“Oh!” he says, nearly jumping out of his skin. He wipes frantically at his eyes, as if removing the evidence will do any good after they’ve already seen it. He musters up the biggest smile he can. “Hey, guys. How’s it going?”

Nebula is helping Gamora stand upright, supporting her with an arm around her shoulders. And they’re both looking at him strangely. Nebula looks like she actually feels sorry for him. It’s not like he doesn’t know she has feelings, but the fact that she can’t _hide_ it...he must really look bad. Gamora, though, looks mostly confused. Whether she’s just confused about the reason for his tears, or about how her future (from her perspective, at least) self could possibly have fallen in love with a mess like him, he’s not sure. 

But there’s some sympathy in her gaze, too. He knows every one of her facial expressions so well, he can recognize them pretty easily even though this Gamora doesn’t have the last four years of experience that he does. 

He shouldn’t be surprised. Gamora was kind to him almost from day one. Kinder than pretty much anyone else he’d met since leaving Earth. Even though she has no feelings for him now, she’s still that good, kind person. The best person he’s ever met. 

Both of them ignore his question. Nebula asks, “Did you get her any food?”

“Oh, uh,” he begins, and is about to confess that he failed on that front when Gamora interrupts. 

“I am not hungry,” she says mechanically, as Nebula helps her over to the bed. 

“You need to eat,” Peter protests. 

Gamora’s resolutely not looking at him now. “The IV had sufficient nutrients.” She sinks down onto the edge of the bed, her legs shaking noticeably as she does. 

“You need to eat,” Nebula echoes, for once backing one of Peter’s statements rather than mocking or undercutting it. “The IV had enough nutrients for a short while, but--”

“I am _not_ hungry,” Gamora insists, a razor edge in her voice this time, despite how weak she still is. She sounds like she would rather have another scalpel stuck into the back of her neck than eat right now. Peter knows better than to argue with her in this state, but apparently Nebula doesn’t, or just doesn’t care.

“Do not make me force food down your throat,” Nebula growls, taking a couple of steps closer to Gamora.

“Hey,” Peter says tentatively, thinking of all the times Nebula has warned him not to push too hard or too fast. “Hey, maybe we should just--”

“Eating right now would make me ill,” Gamora interrupts, drawing herself up to her full seated height as Nebula approaches. She still looks almost comically small compared to her sister, and Peter has to fight the urge to step in and protect her. “If you want me to believe that you have my best interest in mind, then you will not force feed me. In fact, you will leave me alone.”

Nebula glares at her for another long moment, clearly unable to come up with any argument for that that doesn’t contradict itself. Gamora has backed her into a metaphorical corner, and Peter knows from experience how much she hates those. Finally, Nebula growls and stalks out of the room.

Peter glances after her, feeling almost as though the air around him is too thin now that the tension’s dissipated all at once. Well, that tension, anyway. He’s still plenty tense, because now he’s alone with Gamora and he finds suddenly that he has no idea whatsoever how to handle that.

“Uh,” he says, then raises a hand to her in a little half-wave. “Hey.”

He expects her to order him to leave too, or maybe to ask him why he’s so disgustingly pathetic. Instead when she looks up, her face is almost shockingly soft, almost like she might be a different person, like she might be--

“This is difficult for you, isn’t it,” she says finally.

“What do you mean?” he asks, once again in that sham of a casual tone. But the last thing he wants right now is to stick his foot in his mouth and upset her. 

She raises her eyebrows. Even without the memory of their four year relationship, she sees right through him. “Nebula told me that you and I were...together.”

“Yeah, I gathered she’d told you somethin’,” he says. He’s unlikely to ever forget that moment. “What, uh… What exactly did she tell you?” 

“She told me I fell in love with an idiot,” Gamora says bluntly. 

“Oh,” Peter says softly. It’s more an exhale than a word. He looks down quickly so he can hide whatever expression of pain and hurt is twisting across his face. It doesn’t bother him that Nebula thinks he’s an idiot. She’s made that abundantly clear at every opportunity. The word ‘idiot’ has nearly lost meaning to him. But the fact that she’d chosen that way to describe him to Gamora for the first time; the love of his life who didn’t know he existed…that stings. 

There’s quiet for a while as he tries to think of some witty response that will cover up the absolute heartache he’s feeling right now. Before he can come up with anything, though, Gamora speaks again. 

“And that you made me happy.” 

His head snaps up so fast it hurts, but it’s worth it to see the way Gamora is looking at him. It’s certainly not the way he’s gotten used to, but there’s definitely compassion in her gaze. No contempt, unlike before, after she’d kicked him in the nuts and her lip had curled, like it was horrifying that he was the one Nebula told her about. 

“Well I--” He breaks off, throat dangerously tight again. He can't help thinking about her face on Knowhere, the mix of love and despair in her eyes. About what she'd said then. About how he failed her, how he'll always have failed her, whether this Gamora remembers it or not. He swallows, clears his throat painfully. “I hope I did.”

She considers, then shrugs. “I have never been happy. Not really.”

There's an edge of sadness in her voice, and suddenly Peter finds himself struck by nostalgia, or maybe deja vu. They've had this conversation before. Or -- a version of it, at least. Of course it's not like they've discussed how her future -- now past -- self felt about him, but it still feels achingly familiar. 

“I know,” says Peter, swallowing again. “But you could be, you know?”

She sighs heavily. “I am not her. You must know that. I am not a good person.”

He can't help smiling a bit at that, though it makes his chest get tight with longing, too. “She -- _you_ used to tell me exactly that. I never believed it then either.”

Gamora scoffs at that. “Well, Nebula did say you were a fool.”

“Oh,” says Peter, “well hey, that's better than idiot. Progress!” He wipes at his face again, then pushes himself away from the closet and toward the nightstand as he thinks about something else he can offer her. “You know, you kicked me in the balls the first time we met too.”

“And then you--liked me after that?” she asks. He doesn’t miss the omission there, the deliberate choice of the word ‘like’ rather than ‘love.’ He hears the intent, anyway, the skirted-around question: _Is that when you fell in love with me?_

He almost tells her that it wasn’t long after that, but is afraid that would make her uncomfortable. Or would imply that the ball-kicking was the reason. Though, the fact that she can so easily kick his ass is one of the billions of reasons he loves her so much...Loved? No, no. Loves. No matter whether she’s...she’s... No matter what, he will always love her with every ounce of his being. 

He wipes his eyes again because he can’t seem to keep the water inside them and finally says, “With some other stuff in between.” 

She nods and looks around the room while he looks at her. She’s still sitting on the very edge of the bed, barely really on it, sitting tense. He has no idea how to make her relax. Maybe Nebula was right; she knows this Gamora better than he does. 

“Was this my room?” she asks. Her fingers are flexing against the blanket at her side. 

“It’s...it was ours,” he says with considerable effort. 

Her eyes are back on him and she frowns. “You should have it then. I should not--”

“No, please,” he says, aware of the desperation in his tone but unable to control it. The idea of sleeping in here without her makes him feel physically ill. “I haven’t slept in here since...Well, for five years, I guess.” 

She seems to think about that for a bit, then nods again. “That must also be strange. You are out of your time as well.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, though in truth he hasn't thought about it much. He's been very pointedly not thinking about it. “I mean, it doesn't feel real. Then again, sometimes I think the past few years before that weren't real, the ones where we--” He breaks off, restrains himself from saying _when we were in love._ “When we were a team.”

“You seem to still be a team,” says Gamora. “At least you all know one another.”

There's a tiny hint of bitterness in her tone, and it makes his stomach twist. He is certainly glad that she's here, but he can't help also wondering whether it would be easier for her to be...not.

“Anyway!” he says quickly, as brightly as he can manage. “You should totally sleep here, you need rest. Plus I set out some clothes for you. And this!” He reaches into the nightstand drawer and fishes out the hair brush he's seen Gamora use so many times, with its pink handle and soft bristles that always make her curls shine. 

“Oh,” she breathes, taking the brush from him and ignoring the pajamas. She runs a finger around its edge, looking almost reverent. “This is--I couldn't use this.”

Peter shrugs, not entirely surprised by this reaction, bizarre as the situation is to think about. “It's yours. Like, literally. You bought it for yourself.”

The look she levels him with is so familiar it hurts: like she thinks he’s just said the most insane thing she’s ever heard. “I would not do that.” 

“Well, you did,” he says as evenly as he can. “Four years ago, in fact. Well, nine years ago. After we defeated Ronan.”

She glances between him and the hairbrush, settles on the hairbrush. “I understand how Nebula did not believe she could be herself…” 

She says it so quietly he’s not sure he was supposed to have heard, but he asks anyway. “What?”

“Nothing,” Gamora says firmly. 

“Yeah, well…” He rocks back and forth on his heels, searching for something to make this silence less freaking awkward. “You always hated having messy hair, so. There you go.”

Her grip tightens on the handle convulsively, and he wonders if he said the wrong thing. That would be like him. But finally, she begins to slowly brush the tangles out of her hair, as if the hairbrush might disintegrate if she doesn’t handle it very delicately. 

He watches her, almost trance-like. He used to brush her hair for her all the time, and braid it. It was one of the things she found most soothing, and he did too. 

“Are you going to stand there all day?” Gamora asks after a moment, hand stilling. She narrows her eyes at him, distrustful. 

“Oh, uh, no, I guess not,” he says, fumbling for words. His hand twitches; the idea of leaving her alone cuts him to his core, but it’s not like she’s going to want him watching her while she sleeps. He clears his throat. “So, uh, bathroom is just across the hall. If you get hungry, help yourself to whatever you want, the fridge is by the table where you -- where you were earlier. If you need anything at all, I’ll be around. And Nebula, too.” 

“Are the others on board?” asks Gamora. She puts the brush down, apparently finished with it, and reaches back to start braiding her hair. The movement makes her wince, but she continues it anyway. 

“Oh, yes,” says Peter, realizing that they’ve all been asleep so far, that she’s had no opportunity to even glimpse them. “I’ll have to introduce you when you’re all awake.”

“Nebula described them to me,” she says quickly, finishing her braid and then looking a bit at a loss because, he realizes, she doesn’t have a hair tie.

Peter dives into the dresser drawer again, grabbing one and holding it out to her like a prize. 

Gamora fixes him with another cautious look as she takes it, tying off her braid neatly. “I take it you will not leave the planet while I am asleep.”

“We’re docked for now,” he promises. Then it occurs to him why she might be asking. “You’re not gonna disappear again, are you?”

She narrows her eyes and shrugs. “Am I your prisoner?”

“No!” he says immediately, a bit desperately. “No, of course not! I just -- I wanted -- “ _I need you here_ is that he means, but can’t say. Instead he breaks off, shrugs back at her. Until now, he’s sort of managed to conveniently forget how Gamora _had_ wanted to leave when she’d gotten scared, way back when. He sighs. “I hope I’ll see you later.”

She says nothing, just meets and holds his gaze until it becomes clear that the conversation is over, that she isn’t going to offer him anything further. 

Peter backs out of the room silently, closing the door as quietly as possible when he gets out into the hall, unable to shake the sensation that she’s like some sort of scared animal, capable of bolting immediately if he makes too loud a noise. He takes a few steps across the hall, past the table to the other side where the rest of the bunks are and sinks onto one of the spare ones. He doesn’t bother to undress or even take his boots off, just curls up on the thin mattress into as small a ball as possible, like he used to do as a child among the Ravagers.

The tears are still trying to escape, and he decides he’s too tired to try and prevent them anymore. In the silence, he hugs his knees, shoulders shaking with noiseless sobs.


	3. Chapter 3

Waking up has not been easy for Peter the past few days. That’s one of the reasons he’s been sleeping as little as possible. 

Today, it’s extra difficult. His head is achy, his face feels stiff from dried tears, there’s an emotional weight on his chest so heavy he wonders if he can even move… And there’s a band of idiots standing around him, talking about him like he’s not there. 

“We are going to need to wake him up at some point,” Drax says, in his version of a quiet voice, which for him is just not shouting. 

“Why?” There’s Nebula. “He can’t talk when he’s unconscious.” 

“That’s a good point,” Rocket agrees. If Peter were feeling any less shitty, he’d reach out and swipe at him. 

Mantis sounds as earnest as ever when she says, “I thought the point of this _was_ for him to talk?”

“Yes,” Drax agrees. Someone shushes him, and he marginally lowers his voice. “It is pointless to have this discussion without him being aware of it.” 

“It’s also pointless to whisper,” Peter says, finally forcing his eyes open, “when you’ve already woken me up.” 

“Ha!” Drax says loudly, shoving Rocket in the side. Rocket glares at him. “I knew it!” 

“You did not,” Rocket grumbles. He’s still wearing Peter’s red scarf. Neither of them have said anything to the other about it in the past few days, and Rocket hasn’t taken it off yet. 

“I did too,” says Drax. “He was obviously awake.”

“Then why’d you say we should wake him up?” asks Rocket. He’s still glaring, looking about as hungover as he always does after a night out. 

Drax, for his part, never seems to be any worse for wear. “He woke up after that. I knew it then.”

“No,” says Peter, sitting up with a groan. “He was awake for that whole argument, he just didn’t feel like moving.” 

To be fair, he still doesn’t. He feels like he’s been hit by an M-ship, which is not entirely an unfamiliar sensation given their line of work, but it’s always worse when it’s an emotional walloping rather than a physical one. There’s a vague sense of embarrassment as he scrubs a hand over his face, realizes that all of them will be able to tell that he fell asleep crying like a child. Not that it’s the first time, but he hates it just the same. It’s bad enough the way they’ve been tiptoeing around him since Knowhere--

And just like that, the fog of exhaustion and sadness is gone, his heart beating a mile a minute as adrenaline washes over him like someone’s just doused him in ice water. He can’t believe he’s wasted even a moment on not wanting to get up, can’t believe he fell asleep in the first place.

“Is Gamora still here?” he asks, glancing around frantically, willing his eyes to focus. She isn’t in the group standing around his bunk, of course, so he can’t see through the common area to the door of the room where he left her.

“Yes,” Nebula says, and his breathing slows a fraction. 

“Yeah, for now,” Rocket mutters. 

“For now?” Peter repeats. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” Rocket says, crossing his arms as if already preparing for an argument, “that you can’t expect her to want to stay here when she doesn’t even know any of us.”

“She doesn’t know any of us _yet_ ,” Peter points out, then shakes his head. “And she does so. She knows Nebula. And she knows me now. I mean...a little, anyway.” 

“I am Groot.” 

Peter has to crane his neck to see Groot, who’s sitting on a bunk a few feet away, playing his game. Peter hadn’t even realized he was there until now. He levels a glare at him even though he’s not looking. “She is so Gamora. Just not, you know…” 

Finishing that sentence suddenly seems like the most difficult thing in the galaxy. He closes his eyes for a moment, takes a few deep breaths. He doesn’t want to break down and cry; not now, not in front of all of them. 

Nebula sounds pissed--what else is new?--when she says, “How many times do I have to tell you, she _is_ the same Gamora. There is only one Gamora!” 

“I am Groot!”

“ _You_ are being a broken record!” says Nebula.

“I am Groot!” He throws down his game and crosses his arms indignantly.

Nebula stalks a few steps closer to him. “ _No,_ I said _you_ \--”

“Neither of you is a record,” says Drax. “Records are inanimate objects according to Quill.”

“Yes,” says Peter. “They are. And Gamora is -- well, she’s not -- but we shouldn’t -- “

“Of course she is Gamora,” Drax interrupts, surprising Peter. He was prepared to argue, now finds himself off-balance, like he’s swung a punch only to find his target already down. “Who else would she be?”

“Nobody said she ain’t Gamora,” Rocket insists. “But she’s not _our_ Gamora, so why would she want us?”

“Because we are wonderful!” Mantis says immediately, like she’s been waiting for the opportunity.

Nebula wrinkles her nose and scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourselves. It is still beyond me what my sister ever saw in any of you.”

“Oh, really?” Rocket retorts. “Because I distinctly recall some bitter blue tears when they was all dead. ‘Boo hoo hoo, Thanos killed my whole family.’”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down!” Peter says. He holds his hands out but it’s a lame attempt. No one on this team ever listens to him anyway, and they’re sure as hell not about to start now. 

“Not as many furry tears as you did, you hypocritical--” Nebula begins, only to be shouted over by Rocket. 

“I ain’t the one pretendin’ I don’t care!” he yells. 

“That is _all_ you do!” Nebula yells back. 

“Guys, c’mon,” Peter says weakly. He’s way too tired to deal with this, he thinks as he buries his face in his hands. Gamora was always way better at breaking up arguments than he could ever be. 

That thought makes him glad he’s already hiding his face so he can squeeze his eyes shut and try to shove it away. Maybe he can just spend the rest of his life resolutely Not Thinking about anything that makes him want to cry and then he’ll be perfectly fine. 

“You are all very confused and sad,” Mantis informs them helpfully.

“I am not confused,” Drax says. 

“I am Groot.”

“Thank you” Drax says seriously. “I accept your congratulations.” 

Rocket and Nebula, meanwhile, are still having their own argument. “I’m admittin’ I care right now!” Rocket spits. “I care that Quill doesn’t turn into even more of a mess than he already is if the time hoppin’ Gamora in there decides not to stick around!” 

“Hey!” Peter snaps, lifting his head despite the fact that he absolutely has not had enough time to compose himself. Suddenly he very badly wants his headphones and his Zune, though he’s hardly used _those_ in the past few days either. “Hey, I am not a mess!”

“You have dirt on your face,” says Drax, pointing. 

“I do not--” He breaks off and looks around at the others. They’re all staring at him again, the concern in their eyes making his skin crawl. Somehow it would be better if they were mocking him. Mantis nods a little as his eyes pass over her, clearly agreeing with Drax. He grabs for the holo that’s sitting discarded beside his bunk and quickly selects the function that turns it into a low quality mirror.

The image staring back at him is a horror show. He does have dirt on his cheeks, which must be smeared fingerprints from digging in the woods, now mixed with dried tears. His eyes themselves are swollen and bloodshot, with unforgiving bags underneath. And his hair...well, he’s surprised the way his hair is greasy and sticking straight up wasn’t enough to scare Gamora off all on its own. So, to be entirely fair, it seems that he _is_ a mess. A mess she got to witness up close and personal last night while Nebula was working on her mods, and while he was showing her the captain’s quarters.

“Didn’t see any of you helping us search the woods last night,” he says instead.

“I am Groot!” he protests.

“Yeah, we were all asleep!” Rocket agrees. “We didn’t even know she was here until Nebula told us!”

“I would gladly have volunteered!” Drax says. 

“Yes, me too!” Mantis says. “I love dirt! And Gamora!” 

Peter sighs, using the edge of the blanket he’s sitting on--never having actually covered himself with it--to wipe his face as best as he can. He doubts it’s helping. “Well, whatever. The point is, I look like this for a reason.”

“Here,” Drax says, handing him a damp cloth that he must have been holding this whole time. “I brought this for you!”

“And you’re just giving it to me now?” Peter grumbles, taking it anyway. 

“I was distracted,” Drax says simply. 

“You’re always distracted.” Peter puts the whole thing over his face to wipe it all at once. He has to admit--to himself--that it feels good. He hadn’t realized how dry and cakey the dirt was making his skin feel until now.

“The reason is you’re a mess, Quill,” Rocket says as if that little exchange never happened. “Like, on a biological level.”

“Well how come none of you are a mess?” Peter snaps, grief and despair churning into anger inside him. “Gamora is...she’s…”

“She’s been gone for five years,” Rocket says, his tone irritatingly quiet and compassionate. Peter wants another fight, a screaming match, _anything_ but sympathy and sadness. “Five years I had to experience. Unlike you, you ungrateful asshole.”

“You’re the asshole,” Peter mumbles, but it’s weak. 

Groot picks his game up and curls around it in the bunk he’s sitting in, resolutely turning his back to them. Drax points behind them. “What are you talking about? Gamora is here.”

Peter drops the cloth like it's burned him, then picks it up again and tries to stuff it under his thigh out of sight. That only succeeds in making the dampness soak into his pants and he grabs it a third time, shoving it under the bunk instead. He feels a fresh surge of shame as he runs his fingers futilely through his hair, as if he's been caught in a state of undress or worse. 

“You mean weirdo Gamora,” says Rocket, crossing his arms like he might be preparing for an actual fight. Much as Peter had wanted that a minute ago, now the thought of it makes his stomach churn. 

“Gamora is not weird,” says Drax. “Well, no weirder than the rest of us. She is family.”

Fear that she's going to take off again finally supersedes Peter's embarrassment about his appearance. He turns to look at her and immediately freezes. She still looks a bit worse for wear -- shadows under her eyes and that hollowness in her face. But apparently she's gotten over her initial apprehension and found her way into the closet, because now she's wearing a pair of leather pants and a dark purple top that he knows all too well. Her hair is up in an elaborately braided bun, and she looks so much like -- well, like _herself_ that he nearly breaks down all over again. There’s no sign of the weakness or pain from the night before, her mods apparently back in order and her enhanced healing on top of things.

“You know that being behind a closed door does not make me deaf, right?” she asks. She’s got her arms crossed and her voice is stiff. Peter frantically tries to remember how bad their conversation was, what else he should be embarrassed or worried about. 

“Didn’t know you’d be eavesdropping,” Rocket mutters, quiet enough that anyone but Gamora wouldn’t be able to hear from that distance. 

Gamora looks at Rocket now instead, her face almost blank, but Peter knows that expression; she’s evaluating him. 

“Hi, Gamora!” Mantis says suddenly, quite loud, with an enthusiastic wave. 

“Hello,” Gamora says, somewhat tensely. And then something occurs to Peter.

“Oh!” He stands up rapidly, breaking through the half circle the others have formed around him to take a couple steps closer to her. She doesn’t back away, but the tension she’s holding in her body increases. He does his best not to be hurt by that and stands about arms-length away from her. “You don’t...you haven’t met...um, this is Mantis!” He points at her and she waves again. 

“She is the empath,” Nebula supplies. 

Gamora nods and says again, “Hello, Mantis.”

“And this is Drax,” Peter says. He has no idea how Nebula would have succinctly described him to Gamora, and is not surprised when she doesn’t supply anything now. Drax also waves. “That’s Rocket.” Rocket tilts his chin up and grunts.

“He is the furball,” Nebula says. Rocket growls at her. 

“And that’s Groot.” He points to Groot’s back, which remains unmoving. 

“The tree,” says Gamora, regarding him. 

Peter swallows at that, the reminder of how Nebula had described their relationship: _him or a tree._

“Well, not the original one,” says Nebula. “The baby.”

“I am Groot!” Groot protests, apparently unable to ignore being called a baby. He turns and glares at Nebula over his shoulder, but he's still studiously avoiding looking at Gamora at all. 

“That I -- we -- raised?” asks Gamora, ignoring the outburst. The tension in her body is only increasing. 

“He's kind of our son,” Peter volunteers, then immediately regrets it. He remembers how freaked out Gamora had been about the idea of having a baby on the ship, how certain she'd been that she was only capable of hurting him somehow. That alone had been nearly enough to make her run at the time, let alone now. Plus Groot himself looks like he wants to cry again. 

“I would never raise a child,” Gamora says coolly. 

Rocket takes a protective step closer to Groot. “See? This is why it's weird.”

“It’s always weird here,” Peter says hastily. “We’re weird!” He glances at Gamora. “In a good, cool way.” 

“This is weird in a bad way,” Rocket says. “You brought her here without even telling the rest of us!” 

“Since when does she need to be invited?” Nebula asks, her voice edging towards that dangerous tone. Peter had once been unable to identify it, since her voice always sounded dangerous to him, but he’d learned to distinguish...with Gamora’s help. 

Rocket crosses his arms and levels his glare at Nebula. “Since she ain’t our--”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Nebula spits. 

“Hey,” Peter says, glaring at Rocket. He keeps glancing at Gamora out of the corner of his eye, terrified she’s going to bolt. “You invited Thor when I didn’t even want him here!”

“Thor didn’t upset Groot!” Rocket yells. 

Mantis’ antennae are wilting, a sign that she’s getting overwhelmed by too many strong emotions. Drax, meanwhile, has found a bag of chips somewhere and is eating those, apparently content to just watch this show. Gamora’s practically vibrating with tension. 

“Well he upset me,” Peter points out. In any other circumstances, he’d be angry at himself for admitting that, but that’s really the least of his concerns. “And he’s not even a member of the team!”

“She just met us!” Rocket says. “So she ain’t either!” 

“She is still Gamora!” Nebula protests. 

“So she’s still a member of this team,” Peter agrees. 

“I am _not_ a member of your team,” Gamora says tightly, crossing her arms. “I am not one of you, so you can stop worrying about that.”

“You are, though,” says Nebula, sounding substantially calmer than Peter would have expected, given the circumstances. His own heart feels like it’s trying to explode again. “Just as you are my sister, though you didn’t know that until recently either.”

She glares at Nebula, raising her chin defiantly as if that somehow might compensate for the nearly half-foot difference in their height. Not that that has ever prevented Gamora from asserting her dominance when she wants to. “I am not certain I am _that_ , either.”

“Good job, asshole,” Peter hisses at Rocket, the panic and anger in the pit of his stomach too great to ignore, completely overpowering the voice of reason that’s frantically shouting from the back of his mind that Gamora can hear him, that this isn’t helping anything. “This is _exactly what I was afraid of._ ”

Rocket shrugs, still looking smug. “You’re welcome.”

For her part, Nebula just laughs, apparently unperturbed. “I know you better than you know yourself right now, sister. You will have to try harder than that if you want to upset me.”

For a second, Peter’s not sure what she’ll do. She’s clearly on edge, and even Gamora four years into a repaired relationship with Nebula still had trouble resisting her bait sometimes. He doesn’t know if Gamora at this point in their relationship will be able to. 

She surprises him, though. Gamora is always surprising him. Her posture relaxes ever so slightly, like this particular fight at least has gone out of her. “Can we talk? Privately,” she adds, after glancing at Rocket. 

“Of course!” Peter says immediately, before realizing she was probably just talking to Nebula. When Gamora looks at him, he tries to brace himself for her to say just that, that he needs to stay back with the others, she doesn’t want to talk to _him_. 

Again, though, she surprises him, just turning and walking away from the bunks, back in the direction of the table. Nebula follows. 

“Keep it together for a little while, huh?” Peter whispers frantically to the others. 

“Keep what together?” Drax asks around a mouthful of chips.

Peter sighs. He’s explained that phrase to Drax at least half a dozen times before, and he definitely does not have time to do it again. Besides, he thinks, glaring at Rocket, it’s not Drax he’s worried about. 

“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Rocket grumbles. “Do whatever the hell you want. You will anyway.”

“Keep what together?” Drax repeats, louder. 

“I am Groot,” Groot snaps at him, attitude still painfully evident.

“What is a figure of speech?” asks Drax, though that’s definitely a conversation they’ve had plenty of times too. “Speech is intangible, it cannot have a figure.”

“Everyone is _very_ confused,” comes Mantis’s voice, to nobody in particular. “It is making me very dizzy.”

“Sure that’s not just your hangover?” asks Rocket.

The voices fade as they pass into the narrow hallway, then back into the common area around the table. It’s still possible to hear the others, but it’s no longer distinct words, just the vague sound of voices. 

“Do you have anywhere more private than this on this ship?” asks Gamora, almost as though reading his thoughts. Of course, she must still be able to make out the actual conversation. God, he hopes the others aren’t still talking about her. 

“Well,” says Peter, “there’s actual soundproofing in our -- in the room where you slept. But I’m guessing you don’t want to talk in there.”

Gamora’s nose wrinkles as she seems to realize what he’s saying about why that would be the case. “No. I would prefer not to talk in there.”

“Right,” says Peter, trying to will away the flush he can feel starting at the back of his neck. “Uh...well, if you’re worried about the others listening in, how ‘bout we put on some music?”

“Music?” she questions. It must feel like an imperfect solution, when he knows she would be more used to things like portable sound-proofing, or more painful methods to attain privacy. He feels another pang, added to the long list of them, as he realizes that she doesn’t know how important music is to him; to _them_ , because it became important to her too. 

“I’ve got…” He trails off, pulls out his Zune. “It’s got a bunch of songs from Earth on it. It’s my home planet,” he adds, not sure if Nebula would have told her that, or if she’d know. 

Gamora scrutinizes him for a moment. He experiences a moment of irrational fear that she’s going to judge him for this, like everyone else in his life before her. But of course even back when they’d first met...for real first met...she never had. 

“Okay,” she says, something in her tone a little softer. 

He nods and turns away from her while he sets it up, so she won’t see the agony he can’t keep off his face as he plugs it into the speakers and scrolls through the music. So many of these songs hold meaning for them, memories attached to them. There’s songs they’ve danced to, songs they’ve had important discussions to, songs they’ve...done other stuff to; songs they just really like. Scrolling through them trying to decide on one is going to make him cry, so he just picks one at random and presses play. 

He’s heard every song on this thing probably a million times, but somehow it still takes him a moment when he hears the first few beats. He feels disoriented and anxious, probably because of the situation, probably because of everything else he’s trying not to think about. Then the first line comes, _time was drifting, this rocker got to roll_ , and it hits him that he actually hasn’t heard any of these songs for five years, that everything is different now, no matter how hard he tries to forget that.

Peter takes a deep breath and forces himself to keep his back turned through the end of the first chorus, to not watch Gamora’s reaction right away. It feels like a moment of truth somehow, like if she dislikes it or worse yet mocks him for it, then she really is -- 

“What do you think?” he asks abruptly, turning back toward her before that thought can finish.

“The melody is pleasant,” says Gamora, and he nearly fucking loses it right then and there.

“Hey!” says Peter, mainly because he needs to be doing something, needs a task so that he can’t think too much and so that she doesn’t have too much of an opportunity to study him. He clears his throat, making his voice as warm and enthusiastic as possible. “We shouldn’t have a discussion on an empty stomach. You want some breakfast?”

“It is well into the afternoon,” Nebula points out.

“The first meal of the day is always breakfast,” he declares. “No matter when it is.” He’d said that to Gamora the first time they had chocolate for breakfast, and she’d felt guilty about indulging that early. She’d soon come around. 

Nebula glances at Gamora, who shrugs. Nebula says, “Yes, then.”

“Great!” Peter says, with so much forced enthusiasm it could make his head spin. He opens up the fridge they keep on the other side of the table, concentrating on the contents inside a lot harder than he needs to. 

There’s no chocolate in here, which is what he gets when he lets the others go on a supply run without him. He hadn’t wanted to leave the monitor screen for even an hour. 

“There’s not a ton of variety,” he says apologetically. There are a lot of ration packs--unsurprisingly, no one had much felt like cooking recently--but he doesn’t even entertain the thought of offering her those. Gamora ate almost nothing but those while under Thanos’s thumb; which, to her, was up until a few days ago. She never likes...liked...eating rations if she could help it. 

“It does not matter to me,” she says stiffly. 

He sighs internally. “Soup?” 

“I do not care.”

It had taken a while for Gamora to stop being so hesitant to try new foods or express any preferences. It was never that she didn’t want to, he’d learned. In fact, she was always practically vibrating with her eagerness to have foods that weren’t bland and tasteless ration bars. But she hadn’t felt she’d deserved to. And she was unused to having choices. 

“Okay,” says Peter, grabbing a can of soup. It reminds him of the chicken soup he used to have on Earth when he was sick as a kid, though this version is a bit thicker. He _wants_ Gamora to have something better than this, to have a choice, but...apparently none of that is possible, or what she actually needs right now. What she _needs_ is to eat something better than the nutrients in the IV fluid. Soup will do that just fine.

“Soup!” he repeats brightly, grabbing a second can. They’re pretty big, but he knows Nebula and Gamora both have huge appetites when given the opportunity. For his part, he’s not sure he’s going to eat at all. His stomach is still rolling dangerously, like it’s refusing to digest all of the stupid emotions he keeps forcing down into it. 

“You do know that saying ‘soup’ does not prepare it, right?” asks Nebula, though she makes absolutely no move to help him. Instead she pulls out a chair and sits on the opposite side of the table, watching him like he might not be able to be trusted with this menial task.

“Hilarious,” says Peter, grabbing a pot from another cabinet and carrying it over to the small stove. 

He expects Gamora to sit too, or maybe launch into the discussion they’ve been intending to have. Instead she moves to stand over his shoulder, so quietly that he nearly misses it until he turns to find a can opener and nearly has a heart attack.

“Uh...hi?” he manages, trying to get his breathing and heart rate back under control.

“I do not eat food that I don’t see prepared,” says Gamora.

He swallows, carefully setting the stuff down with hands that are only a little shaky. “Right.” He does remember that from the early days, that it hadn’t stayed true for long. He remembers her watching him prepare hot chocolate for her. For the first few days after the War Over Xandar, he’d taken bites out of her food to show her that it wasn’t poisoned. That hadn’t lasted long, though. “You can trust me, you know.”

She doesn't waver. “I will watch.”

He sighs out loud this time, but reminds himself that her paranoia ran deep when they first met. And from her point of view, they just met. It almost feels like that from his point of view too, this strange combination of knowing her and feeling like he doesn’t. 

“All right,” he says, plopping the pot onto the burner that’s built into the small counter and dumping the contents of the cans into it. “There’s not much to it, though. We get this stuff because all you gotta do is heat it up. Lazy meals, you know.”

She doesn’t answer. She’s not used to much preparation for her meals, he remembers. Not that they did a ton of cooking in their four years, but they did _some_. 

“Now we just wait,” he says, because he’s got to fill the silence. Gamora’s watching it with more than just scrutiny, he realizes. He takes that as a win. “Look good?”

“It smells--interesting,” she allows. 

“Good interesting?” he pushes, because she’s still got that predatory look in her eyes and he knows that it’s been several days since she had anything to eat. Maybe he should have gotten a third can going as well, though it’s not like they can’t do that later if she decides she wants it. 

She raises her chin defiantly again. “Just...interesting.”

“You know,” says Peter, digging in a drawer for a moment before fishing out a spoon and stirring with it, “nobody here is going to take advantage of you. Like -- we’re not gonna extort you if you admit that you’re hungry.” It makes his heart ache to realize that’s what she’s afraid of, to remember that she’d felt that way back when he’d first met her, too. God, there are a _lot_ of painful details he’s allowed to slip to the back of his mind, replaced with better ones from the present. The present that’s gone now.

Gamora gives him a cruel smile. “I would like to see you try to extort me.”

Peter flinches at that -- more the tone than anything else -- but he doesn’t get a chance to respond.

“He’s telling the truth,” says Nebula. “He may be a fool, but he has always been honest and good to you.” She pauses, then begrudgingly adds, “to both of us.”

“Thanks, I guess,” he says mildly, though in truth he’s touched. That’s one of the nicest things Nebula has ever said to him--or about him. Even if she did have to throw an insult in there along with it.

“I hardly know you,” Gamora insists, bursting that two-second long bubble of brief happiness. She turns to Nebula. “And we have been allies for only a few days.”

“Years,” Nebula corrects. Her tone is gentle, the tone he’s only ever heard her use with Gamora, but her hand is gripping tight to the edge of the table; she’s tense too, just trying not to let on. 

“Not to me,” Gamora insists. She turns to Peter, her posture, her tone, her words all business-like. “I would like to barter for some food and supplies, and then I will be out of your way.” 

“Out of my--what?” Peter sputters. He suddenly feels like he can hardly breathe. “No, you--what?” 

Gamora raises an eyebrow. “Are you broken?”

“You do not want to stay?” Nebula asks, though it hardly sounds like a question. It’s like she’s not surprised by this at all. Really, Peter thinks, trying to calm himself down, he shouldn’t be either. Gamora nearly hadn’t stayed with them at first either, had been one self-punishing beat away from running for the first week or two. And this time she doesn’t have the bond of having defeated Ronan with them to hold them together. 

“I do not belong here,” Gamora informs him. “I’m better off on my own.”

“You are not!” Peter says desperately. “This--this is our team! Our family!”

“Thanos murdered my family twenty years ago,” she says. “And I do not do teams.” 

“Yes you do!” he insists, aware that his voice is on the verge of breaking, that she has to be able to hear the way every part of his body is practically screaming in anxious agony. Maybe she’s even playing on that, intentionally. “You do! You do _this_ team. We need you.” He takes a deep breath and runs a hand through his hair, resisting the urge to tear at it. He’s all but forgotten about the soup now.

“Thanos murdered _you_ ,” says Nebula, getting to her feet again, which makes the chair scrape against the floor in a way that raises the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck. “He took you from us, Gamora. And us from you. But now we all have an opportunity to undo that. To get it back. Do not let him win.”

Gamora stares her down for a long moment before she speaks. “If that is your definition of him winning, then he already did. I am not the person that you think I am.”

“I thought that once too,” says Nebula, taking a couple of steps closer, though she’s still on the other side of the table. “When you offered me a place here.”

“You’re delusional,” Gamora insists. “Both of you.”

“I also thought that even when confronted with--myself,” Nebula says. She makes a face as though angry with herself, possibly for not having the words to articulate this properly. Peter can’t blame her. “Myself in the past. The version of myself that you knew already. But I was wrong. And so are you.” 

“Do not tell me that I’m wrong about myself,” Gamora says angrily. It’s the kind of anger he remembers hearing in her early arguments with Nebula, before they became as close as they did. 

“I know you better than you do right now,” Nebula says, sounding just the tiniest bit smug. That’s familiar too. Well, not the tiny part. 

“You do not!” Gamora says, her voice edging towards danger again. 

“Hey!” Peter interjects, forcing a cheery tone through the raucous panic happening inside him. “I told you guys, this is not the kind of discussion we should be having on empty stomachs. Soup?” Surely, food will fix this. 

Gamora eyes him suspiciously as he ladles the soup into bowls. She’d taken her eyes off him while arguing with Nebula, and now he can see she’s concerned he could have done something during that time. 

“I better taste test it,” he says, and dips his spoon into one of the bowls to take a deliberate bite. “Mmmm, delicious.” He opens his mouth to show her he swallowed, then pushes that bowl towards her. 

Gamora takes the bowl from him cautiously, like she wants to be sure that no part of her body touches his. Or maybe wants to be sure that he can't make any sort of surprise movements to hurt her. 

And that’s all it takes for the doubt and anger to come crashing back, like he's somehow managed to stave off gravity with denial only to find himself buried under the proverbial avalanche now. Maybe she's right, he thinks. Maybe she has no place here. After all, she isn't _his_ Gamora, isn't the one who loves him. Doesn't seem like she ever could be. In this moment, he sees nothing but a cruel parody of the woman he lost. Nothing but constant painful reminders that she’s gone and always will be, that probably he ought to thank the universe for the fluke that allowed her to love him in the first place when he so clearly doesn't deserve it. 

In this moment, he hates the woman in front of him with his entire being, can't get her off of his ship and out of his sight soon enough. 

“Sit,” Nebula tells her before he has a chance to say anything. “Eat. Then we will talk about an arrangement if that is what you want.”

Gamora--or whoever this is, he thinks bitterly--takes the bowl and sits at one end of the table, as far from them as she can. He doesn’t want to sit next to this imposter anyway, so he sets Nebula’s bowl down on the table and takes his own to the other end. If Gamora doesn’t wanna be anywhere near him, fine. 

His hand shakes where he’s gripping his spoon as hard as he can. If he lets up even a little bit, he’s afraid he’d drop it and it would clatter and make a scene. Hot tears sting at the back of his eyes and it’s all he can do to keep them away right now. He can’t even focus on eating, because the mere thought makes his stomach churn, the smell of the soup suddenly repulsive to him. He has no idea if Gamora is eating hers and he decides angrily that he doesn’t care. _His_ Gamora had liked this soup, but maybe this one prefers bland ration bars. 

“I have no money,” Gamora says after a while. He risks a glance up and sees that she has eaten a little. He beats back the relief that flows through him at that; he doesn’t care. “I have a couple of knives.”

It must have been a struggle for her to say that, he can’t help but think. And for her to be willing to give up some of her weapons. He notices she’s omitted the Godslayer, which doesn’t surprise him. Gamora would never… He shakes his head. _He doesn’t care_. He doesn’t _want_ to care.

“What good are your knives to us?” Peter says to his soup, which he’s stirring around aimlessly with his spoon. 

“Sell them if you wish,” says Gamora. She's aiming her tone at dismissive but not quite getting there. He knows how much she loves her knives. Or how much _his_ Gamora did, anyway. Maybe now all he's hearing is a memory. “The only thing I am unwilling to part with is my sword.”

Peter snaps his head up at the mention of the Godslayer, sees that she's nearly emptied her bowl. So she must like this soup too. Not that he cares -- about her food preferences or her sword or _her._ “Wouldn't want your sword anyway. Already got one of those. The real one, from the real Gamora.”

She has the good grace to look taken aback at that, flinches almost imperceptibly, then puts her spoon down with as much grace as she can muster. He doesn't miss the way her fingers twitch, though. “Another Godslayer?”

“Yeah,” says Peter, enjoying her reaction. He puts his spoon down too and crosses his arms. “The _real_ Gamora lost hers when Thanos took her. She was trying to protect the rest of this family from him. Not that you'd know anything about that.”

“That is enough!” Nebula snaps. She’s glaring at him so he glares at her, but he can’t help but notice that Gamora’s reaction is more noticeable this time; a bigger flinch, her fingers tense where they press against the table. It must upset her to think about her sword not being one of a kind anymore. Or perhaps to imagine that her future...that some version of herself would be willing to give everything up to protect a bunch of people she doesn’t even want to be around. That is darkly pleasing to the part of him that is still angry at this Gamora for existing while his doesn’t, but guilt is starting to creep up from the part of him that knows it’s not her fault.

“I know these people are morons,” Nebula tells Gamora. “But they are...good. You can be part of something good if you stay.”

Gamora looks at her, and Peter could probably guess what’s going through her mind if he cared to, which he doesn’t. He _doesn’t_. He’d do anything to just _stop caring_. 

Finally, Gamora turns to him, her outward composure returned. “You do jobs, correct?”

“Yes,” Peter says simply, not bothering to tell her it’s not as simple as that word makes it sound. 

“Then I will stay long enough to complete a few jobs with you,” she says. “So I can earn enough units to survive on my own. If that is all right with your team.” 

“No!” Peter snaps, the anger flaring again as she reminds him that she’s only here for money. “No, that is _not_ all right with my team. It's not all right with me!”

She looks unsurprised at his outburst. Perfectly calm, in fact. She arches an eyebrow at him. “Was it not you saying earlier that this team needs me?”

“Yes,” he says on a sigh, because he can't deny that. He does need Gamora, they all do. It's just that this isn't her. The fact that she only wants to be here for the money feels like yet more proof. He can't help remembering how _his_ Gamora had reacted to the Asgardian distress call, how she'd been immediately in favor of responding because it was the right thing to do, even in the high likelihood of danger. How she'd been irritated by Rocket's claim that he was only in it for the units. “I did say that, but I guess that was just further proof that I'm an idiot. We're Guardians, not mercenaries.”

“That arrangement will be sufficient,” says Nebula, as though she hasn't heard him at all. 

“Hey!” says Peter, but she ignores that too, ploughs right over him. 

“She will stay with us to earn some units,” says Nebula. “And if you have a problem with that, then I will kill you.”

For a second, he has the wild urge to dare her to do it. Or to just give Gamora all the units they have and tell her to be on her way. But, aside from the fact that that would make the others get in line behind Nebula for the chance to kill him, he doesn’t actually want Gamora to leave. As nice as this righteous anger is in comparison to the other emotions he could be feeling, it’s getting harder and harder to hold onto, especially when he thinks about her not being there at all anymore; true Gamora or not. 

Still, he’s got plenty of anger left. “Fine!” he snaps, and shoves his untouched soup away from him like a petulant child, taking pleasure in the fact that some of it spills over onto the table. “I’ll go find us a damn job.” Then he stands up and marches out of the room, leaving Gamora and Nebula to do whatever the hell they please. 

He even manages to keep his tears at bay until he’s out of sight.


	4. Chapter 4

The dream starts the same way that the last one did, and the one before that.

The same as every dream, in fact, since Thanos ripped her away from her...reality? Timeline? It doesn’t matter. As if taking her homeworld from her wasn’t enough. 

She is standing in a snow...storm? 

No, a blizzard. The snow is thick and wet, being whipped around her in a wind that’s strong enough to make the flakes into small projectiles, stinging where they strike her unprotected face and neck. She wishes that she had a coat, wishes that she had a hood. Wishes that she didn’t feel so damn exposed. She isn’t going anywhere fast in these conditions, though. Even if visibility wasn’t non-existent, the wind is almost enough to knock her off her feet. 

She glances around, tries to determine whether there’s shelter anywhere nearby, but can’t see anything besides the swirling snow and the occasional sliver of red-orange light in what might be the sky. Nothing left to do but take a chance, then.

Choosing a direction, Gamora sets off slowly, one deliberate step at a time. She isn’t going to slip, isn’t going to lose her footing on the rocky ground that’s treacherously slick with ice. 

She chose wrong, it seems. Eventually--what feels like both an eternity and only a second later--she finds herself standing on the edge of a cliff. It’s very high; she knows this even though she doesn’t dare peer over the edge to try to see the ground below. She looks straight ahead, though there’s nothing to see but ice and snow and mist, a cloud that obstructs her view of whatever else might be out there. 

Still, a deep, frightened sense of cold pierces her as she stands there. She gets the feeling that she’s been here before, though she doesn’t know when that would have been. It’s not somewhere she wants to be again, regardless. 

She takes a careful step back and turns around, only to find her path blocked by Peter Quill, suddenly standing right in front of her. His face is contorted in pain or anger or both, his agony clear. He’s holding her sword. 

Impossible; the Godslayer is on her hip. She feels for it to make sure and yes, there it is. For a moment, she wonders whether she should draw it, whether Quill intends to fight her with the one he has. But he’s not holding it like he is. In fact, he’s holding it out _towards_ her, offering it. 

“Take it,” he says. She can hear him despite how quiet his voice is and how loud the wind is around them. 

“I already have it,” says Gamora, keeping her hand on the hilt of her Godslayer. The only real Godslayer, she thinks. The other one is wrong, just as Quill’s image of her is. A weak imitation of her and her sword. An imposter who apparently thinks of nothing but love and family. Who pretends to be a hero.

Or _did_ , more accurately. Because that imposter is dead, which seems plenty of reason to be grateful that _she_ is none of those things. 

“Take it,” Quill repeats, his eyes colder than the storm. She doesn’t know him, she shouldn’t care, yet they do somehow manage to chill her further.

“I don’t take orders from you,” says Gamora, and moves to draw her own sword, her real sword -- only to find her hand full of nothing but bubbles. The Godslayer is gone, just like that. Like it never even existed.

Quill scoffs a bitter laugh, then shakes his head. He’s still holding his version of the sword. “Take it, before it’s too late.”

A weapon is better than no weapon, she knows, and hers is gone. She is no fool, so she does as he says and takes the sword, trying to ignore how right it feels in her grasp.

“Before it’s too late for what?” she asks despite herself. She holds the sword at her side, not towards him, but where it would be easy for her to lift it should she need to. 

“Too late for you to kill me,” he says simply. 

She recoils, a shock going through her system as though she’s been physically hurt. The idea is so viscerally repulsive to her that she takes a step back from him. “What? Why?”

“Kill me,” he says again. “Just kill me. It’ll be easier.”

“No!” she says. “Why would I kill you?”

He takes a step closer and she takes another step back, tightening her grip on her sword, but not to--never to kill him. She may not trust him but that doesn’t mean she wants him dead, and she certainly doesn’t want to kill him. 

“Please,” he says, basically begging now. He looks like he’s in so much pain. “Kill me.”

She shakes her head and takes another step back--only to find that there’s no more ground beneath her feet. 

She’s frozen in the air for a moment, suspended over nothing, supported by nothing. Then Peter’s not there, and her sword falls from her hand, and then she’s falling too, through the cold, seemingly without end-- 

She wakes up shivering.

* * *

Peter almost wishes that he still had the search to run. 

Not that it wasn’t frustrating, not that it didn’t feel like its own exercise in futility because he knew even then that the only woman it could possibly find would be different from the one he lost. Still, it was something to do, a hope to hold onto, whereas now…

Now he’s having trouble even holding onto the anger, which was somehow more of a comfort than any of the other things he seems to be capable of feeling at the moment. 

Gamora has spent the day either with Nebula or holed up in the captain’s quarters, which he’s started regretting giving to her. Not that he wants to see her, it’s just that the rest of the ship doesn’t have much at all in the way of privacy. 

The bunks are no good for brooding, especially now that it’s night again and the others are sleeping all around him. Drax’s snoring is loud enough to cover up a multitude of sins, but he still feels too too vulnerable, too exposed. 

He gives up at some point during the night, when he’s fairly sure the others are all asleep, or at least pretending at it better than he is. He grabs his Zune and trudges out of the bunk area, dragging his feet. He doesn’t have to pass the captain’s quarters—he can’t call it her room or _their_ room, it nearly paralyzes him to think about—but he can see it on the other side of the common area. The door is closed. He tries not to picture Gamora inside it. 

He passes the table, the table where Gamora laid when they brought her back. He steers away from that. He could go to the gym area, but that’s where he and Gamora used to train—or, where Gamora used to go super easy on him and it still exhausted him. It was always fun anyway. 

He avoids the cockpit, because he doesn’t want to have to stare at Gamora’s empty seat. 

He pauses in front of the ladder that leads to it anyway and bangs his head against it with a sigh. He relishes the pain, the temporary distraction. Any physical pain would be better than this. Everything on this ship reminds him of her. It’s like her ghost is pervading the entire thing, even as she’s here in body. Or a version of her. 

He makes a frustrated noise and sinks down onto the floor, back against the ladder. He doesn’t want to sit in a chair. Gamora sat in all those chairs at some point. 

Once he’s on the floor, though, he realizes that it’s utterly impossible to avoid the memories no matter what he does. They were here, he thinks -- standing, of course, but still _right here_ \-- when she had made her first and only allusion to her knowledge of the Soul Stone. When she had made him promise to kill her, when he had _agreed_ , the last time that they had really --

Well, fine then. If the memories and the grief are just going to keep coming, then maybe it’s time to embrace them. He’s in the mood for pain anyway, and he’s exhausted so maybe it’s time to stop fighting and let it all just fucking bury him. Maybe if he’s really lucky, he’ll get so sad that his heart will turn into a black hole and swallow him up. 

Setting his Zune on his lap, he slips his headphones on and dials the volume up as high as it will go. This time he’s not trying to avoid pain, is trying to do the opposite in fact. He flips through the playlists until he finds the one that’s all Pat Benatar, all the songs that were Gamora’s favorites. Pressing play is like impaling himself on a knife, but there’s a certain satisfaction in it too, a certain amount of relief.

He loses track of time. He just lets himself wallow, lets the tears fall down his cheeks without even bothering to wipe them. He wishes she were here to hold him. Like, actually here, not just this--copy of her who doesn’t know him at all, who is just _not the same_ , no matter what Nebula says. Of course, if she were here, he wouldn’t be in this state. 

It surprises him when he feels her behind him. For a second, when he turns and sees her standing there, dressed for bed, near the door to the captain’s quarters, he almost forgets it isn’t really her. Her hair is braided, those are her clothes. And she brings up a whole slew of other memories; back when they were first getting to know each other, they’d often run into each other at night when neither of them could sleep. That was usually in the cockpit of the Milano. They were already together by the time they got this ship.

She’s clearly surprised to see him there too, and she doesn’t even have those memories. 

“Sorry,” she says stiffly. He just grunts in response, doesn’t even bother to wipe his tears. He’s not embarrassed by them. He’s got no energy to be embarrassed. 

She glances back towards the captain’s quarters, as if debating whether she should return to them. He thinks of those times on the Milano, when he’d invited her to sit next to him, and she had returned the favor when he was the one stumbling upon her. They’d talked, sometimes all through the night, and listened to music. Even danced a few times.

He doesn’t want her here now, he tells himself. He doesn’t want to talk to her, doesn’t want to be reminded of how different she is, how different things are. Of how much he’s lost and will never get back. 

He pulls off his headphones and looks up at her, trying to will her to just turn around and walk away again. It would be easier that way, would be yet another sign that she isn’t the woman he loves. It would be more fuel for his anger, too. Maybe if he glares at her hard enough, wills it hard enough, she’ll--

“What is that song?” she asks, instead. She takes a tentative half-step closer, looking at him curiously. Her expression reminds him of the first time he’d shared his Walkman with her, back when Knowhere was just the place where they had almost kissed, before it had become the place where he’d lost her.

“What?” asks Peter, feeling disoriented because he hasn’t expected to talk to her, and definitely hasn’t expected that particular question. 

“That song,” she repeats, gesturing to the Zune and the headphones that are now hanging around his neck. She must be able to hear it through them, he realizes suddenly, though the Zune has no external speaker. “What is it?”

He could be petulant and not answer that question, but he’s never missed a chance to talk about his music. And it is difficult for him to refuse a request of Gamora’s, apparently no matter what version of her she is. He looks down at the screen, because he’s lost track of what song he’s even listening to. “It’s called _We Live For Love_. Pat Benatar.” 

“Benatar?” Gamora asks. “Like this ship?”

He nods. He decides to finally wipe the tears off his face because they’re drying unpleasantly, and if he’s actually going to talk to another person maybe he should look like slightly less of a disaster. “Uh, yeah. It’s named after her. You named it after her, actually. She was your favorite singer. Or--the other you, you know.”

“Right,” she says, still stiff. She sounds nothing but sincere when she says, “It is a good song. I like it.” 

“Oh,” he says, rather stupidly. It’s just that that makes it quite a bit harder for him to be angry at her because this, at least, is something that remained the same. A lot of things have, if he allows himself to think about it, but he’s doing his very best not to do that right now. 

He allows himself to look at her a little closer, and frowns when he takes in how tense she is. Tenser than she has been this whole time. “What’s wrong?” he asks, even though he totally doesn’t care. 

“Nothing,” she says automatically, then crosses her arms and hugs herself, not quite able to mask the chill that seems to run through her. He wonders whether one of her mods is malfunctioning again, but she doesn’t seem to be in pain. She looks afraid more than anything else, as much as Gamora has ever looked.

“Fine,” he sighs, wanting to be frustrated with her and failing. “I’m doing great too.”

She hugs herself tighter, opens and closes her mouth once before finally taking another step closer. “May I?” She reaches out and for a second he thinks she intends for him to take her hand, only realizes an embarrassing beat later that she’s gesturing to his headphones.

“Oh,” he breathes, his heart aching with a combination of longing and hope. He can’t refuse her that, no matter how deep he tries to dig for the anger, for the bitterness, for the certainty that this isn’t the woman he loved. All he wants right now is to have her here with him, to share this with her again. “You -- You’re gonna have to sit. The cord isn’t long enough to reach otherwise.”

Gamora nods and sinks gracefully down beside him, not quite close enough for their shoulders to touch. She takes the headphones and puts them on, listening in silence for a couple of minutes as he restarts the song for her.

“Do you?” she asks too loudly over the song’s last chorus.

Peter jumps and puts a finger to his lips, thinking of the others. Then he turns the volume down on the Zune. “Do I what?”

She has the good grace to look a bit sheepish. “Live for love? Should I -- be concerned for your continued survival?”

All he can do is stare at her for a second, in awe. Then a small smile tugs at his lips, and he actually lets out a little laugh. And also cries some more. But while smiling. 

“What?” she asks, looking uncertain. 

He shakes his head, and it takes him a moment before he feels composed enough to answer without either bursting into hysterical laughter or hysterical sobbing. There’s a powerful wave of nostalgia sweeping through him, mixing with the grief as it comes. That kind of earnest question is just _so_ Gamora, especially before she understood how figurative Terran songs can be. “It’s just, you sounded so much like...well, like yourself.” 

“Imagine that,” she says dryly, but not unkindly. She’s not smiling, but it’s the most lighthearted he’s heard this Gamora be. 

“Right, well.” He clears his throat, wipes his face again. “My heart won’t actually stop beating without love or anything, so don’t worry about that. It just means like...love is the reason we like living, I guess. Like it’s what makes life worth living.” He doesn’t add that lately he has had the thought, maybe even the hope, that his heart would give out without his Gamora. 

“Ah.” Gamora looks down at the Zune, not at him, when she says quietly, “Thanos would say that is weak.”

“Thanos is gone,” he reminds her. 

She flinches a bit at that, then nods. “I always thought I would be happy to hear those words.”

Peter studies her, wondering whether he can trust himself to read her anymore. He knows plenty about _his_ Gamora’s conflicting feelings about Thanos, still has the painfully vivid memory of how she’d cried on Knowhere, in that brief moment where it had seemed he’d truly been defeated, that disaster had been averted. “But...you’re not?”

“I am not...unhappy,” she says carefully. Then she looks up at him abruptly, her eyes dark and apprehensive. “I don’t want you to think that I am sympathetic to his cause. I have no wish to harm anyone or to be your enemy.”

“Hey,” he says immediately. “Hey, I know that. You can trust me, remember? I want to help you.”

She nods, blows out a breath, and doesn’t immediately shoot him down. “It’s a relief that he’s gone. He was a monster. But he was also -- all that I knew for a very long time. Him and Nebula, and -- _My_ Nebula is -- gone too.”

“Oh,” he says stupidly. It’s all he can manage because suddenly he feels incredibly selfish, and guilty for the way he treated her yesterday. She’s lost basically everything she’s ever known, and yeah, most of that stuff was crap, but now she’s found herself nine years in the future with a bunch of people who have all these memories and experiences of her that she doesn’t share. It’s strange enough for him to think about those five years he was gone, that he experienced as only a few seconds, but at least he’s got half the universe in the same boat as him. And most of his team. Gamora, though...she’s the only one here who lost those four years. He can’t imagine how lonely that must feel. 

Because he can’t think of anything to say that will properly express all that, after a moment of semi-awkward silence, he says, “This Nebula is nicer than the one I met nine years ago. A little, anyway.”

“She is,” Gamora agrees. “That is one of the strangest parts of all of this. Nebula and I...I never thought we could have the kind of relationship we...that she seems to think we had.”

“Never?” Peter asks, thinking of stories she told him about her and Nebula as children.

“Perhaps not never,” she amends. “But not outside of foolish childhood dreams.” 

“You and she are two of the strongest, best people I have ever met,” he says earnestly. He even means that about Nebula, these days. He’d had more doubts about her in the beginning, mostly out of protectiveness toward Gamora. But he’s had more than enough time now to dispel all of those and then some. 

Gamora shakes her head. “I can understand why I am a disappointment to you. I am -- sorry that I am not the one you want. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I know!” he says quickly, his heart aching for her even more. “I know you don’t. I never thought -- “

“But I am,” she interrupts. She hands his headphones back very carefully and pulls her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It makes her look very small and very young. “I am hurting you by being here. By being -- me and not her.”

“Gamora,” he tries again, the words hitting him like a punch to the gut. He’s been a supreme dick, he thinks now. Not just in yelling at her, not just in being angry. In letting his grief be so very clear too, in assuming that she wouldn’t be as perceptive as always just because she’s missing the past few years. 

“I’ll leave,” she says sharply, looking up to meet his eyes again. “If that’s what you prefer.”

“No!” Peter says urgently. His chest squeezes in on itself out of fear. “Don’t! Please don’t.” She still looks flighty, unconvinced. The thought of her leaving sends another wave of grief through him. God, the him from earlier today who was such a dick to her and wanted her gone couldn’t feel farther away right now. 

“I know it doesn’t feel like it yet,” he says slowly, trying to tamp down on the panic in his voice, “but you are a part of this team. I don’t want you to leave”

“But if I am hurting you--” 

He doesn’t let her finish. “You’re not! Really!” She looks incredibly skeptical, and okay, the amount that he’s been crying--and is still crying right now, he realizes, swiping angrily at his cheeks again--probably isn’t making that sound very convincing. “A lot less than I’m hurting you, probably.” Shit. That’s maybe not the best argument for getting her to stay. But his mere presence, the knowledge of what he was to...a future version of her...is definitely distressing to her. “I know this has got to be confusing.”

She sighs, and a small amount of tension evaporates with it. That’s something, he decides. “I still do not see how I could ever be-- _her_ ,” she says. “Someone who has all of this.” She sounds distinctly vulnerable, though she’s trying her best to hide it. When they had this type of conversation four-- _nine_ \--years ago, when they were both new to the idea of a team like this, he couldn’t read her as much. But he can now. 

“Well,” says Peter thoughtfully, “maybe you don’t need to see right now.” 

He wipes at his face again and straightens up a little, facing her more. She’s wearing the same black leggings that he pulled out of the closet for her, and a soft tunic-length tank top that he’s more accustomed to seeing her wear in the gym. His Gamora -- no, he chides himself, he is not going to think like that anymore if it leads to her getting hurt. When Gamora had gotten more comfortable here, with him, she had preferred to wear his shirts to bed. But not early on, he reminds himself. 

She arches an eyebrow at him, equal parts challenge and cautious hope. “No?”

“Well,” he says gently, “when this team got together, none of us could. None of us had ever had anything like it, and I think we all -- We all thought we couldn’t be the kind of people who deserved it.”

“You didn’t?” she asks, the earnestness in her voice making his heart ache. That’s one of the things he’s always loved about Gamora -- her openness, her willingness to learn another way, to be better than the life that’s been forced on her.

“No,” he says immediately. “Hell, I spent like at least a month wondering when you were all gonna discover that I was actually a pathetic loser and leave.”

“But we didn’t,” Gamora says. It’s not a question, but he answers it anyway. 

“Nope. Turns out you all already knew I was a pathetic loser, but you stuck around anyway.” He gives her a wry, self-deprecating smile. She doesn’t return it. 

“I don’t think you are a loser,” she says, still very earnest. 

He blinks, taken aback. “Wha--you don’t?” 

She appears surprised at his surprise. “Surely the other me did not think you were?”

“Well, no,” he admits. She wouldn’t stand for him calling himself that, either. But this--no, not _this_ , he’s got to stop thinking like that--Gamora right now, who’s sitting next to him, earlier today had barely wanted to look at him. When she first saw him, she was repulsed by the idea that he was the one Nebula told her she fell in love with. “When we first met...you know, the first time...you totally did, though. You called me an honorless thief.” 

“Why would I say that?” she asks, and Peter’s suddenly struck by how much she really doesn’t know. 

“Oh, because I was a thief,” he says. “I totally had honor, though. But you didn’t find that out until a little later.” 

“You were a thief?” she asks, her interest clearly piqued.

“Yeah,” says Peter, feeling a flush of shame at that. It’s weird, having to tell her that now, even after hearing all of her own insecurities, even after telling her how insecure all of them were. How that made them all fit together. Still, he can’t help feeling that bringing it up might have been a mistake. But he’s committed now. “I was -- um -- You know about the Ravagers?”

“Yes,” says Gamora. “But I have never known of a Terran who was one of them.”

“Aw,” he whines, letting the familiarity of this carry him away. “You’ve never heard of the legendary Star-Lord?”

He expects her to scoff, to call him ridiculous. He thinks he’d even be okay with it if she did. Instead her lips twitch ever so slightly. “From Nebula. _This_ Nebula.”

“Oh,” he says softly, touched, even though Nebula probably told her about his outlaw name derisively. He clears his throat. “Okay, so -- yeah, I’m from Earth, but I’m only half Terran. The other half of me is -- kind of a long story. I’ll tell you another time, if you want.” That part still feels too vulnerable to share with her, especially because of the way it’s wrapped up in the way they had gotten together -- Which is exactly why he’s not going to think about it right now. “My mom died when I was eight. And right after that, I was abducted by the Ravagers.”

“That must have been difficult,” she says, voice full of empathy. 

He swallows; that’s almost exactly how she reacted the first time he’d told her that his mother died, just before he’d opened her final gift to him. “Yeah,” he says, then clears his throat because it sounds way too scratchy and emotional. “So, uh, I became one of them. Didn’t really have much of a choice. I did my own thing sometimes--a lot of the time--but I was a thief.” 

He watches her carefully, wondering if the other shoe is going to drop, if she’s going to suddenly wrinkle her nose, look down on him like she did in the Kyln; or worse, tell him this is proof that she couldn’t have loved him, because how could she love a former Ravager, a petty thief? 

She does none of those things, though. Instead, she nods, and she looks...almost relieved? “You don’t seem like a Ravager.”

“Well, I hope not,” he says mildly. “Those guys were assholes. But… It doesn’t--I don’t know, offend you that I was a thief?”

She quirks an eyebrow. “It does not seem to offend you that I am an assassin.” She uses the present tense, he notices, not surprised. It originally took her quite a while to start saying she _was_ an assassin, rather than she _is_ , and even after four years she still used the present sometimes. 

“I didn’t see how I could have possibly fit in among a band of heroes,” she continues. “But a band of thieves...that makes more sense.” 

He smirks, some of the tons of tension he’s carrying in his shoulders uncoiling. “Well, the others weren’t thieves, you know. Not professionally, anyway. Rocket definitely stole stuff, but that was more for fun.”

“The raccoon?” asks Gamora, looking curious. “The one who worked with Nebula, right? While you all were -- away.”

“Yes,” says Peter, then realizes that he’s going to have to ask Rocket about that one of these days. He’s both impressed and touched that they’d stayed together, worked well together, apparently. Kept the ship and the faith that it would be home to this family -- or _a_ family, at least -- again someday. “But don’t let him hear you call him that. He hates it.”

She nods earnestly. “But...what did he do before besides stealing things for fun?”

“He was a bounty hunter, pretty much,” says Peter. He can’t help smiling a little. “Him and Groot -- well, the first Groot, not this one -- were tryin’ to get a bounty the Ravagers put on me because I stole the Orb from Morag.”

Her eyebrows shoot up again. “ _You_ stole it? An Infinity Stone?” At first he thinks she’s looking at him with incredulity, must be wondering how an incompetent idiot like him could manage such a feat, but -- then he realizes that she’s impressed.

“Uh,” says Peter, trying to swallow down the flush he feels rising in his cheeks. His emotions are so damn fickle today, even moreso than usual. “Yeah. Yeah, that was totally me.”

“How?” she asks. “How did you even find it?” She shifts just a little, and she’s got that open expression on her face she always got...gets, he supposes, since here she is having it...when she’s really interested in something. 

“It’s kind of a story,” he says. “You sure you wanna hear it?”

“Yes,” she says, then frowns. “Unless you don’t want me to know. I understand if you don’t trust me.”

“No, of course I do,” he says quickly. “I just want you to get comfy. We could be here for a while.”

Her expression relaxes, and she lets herself lean back against the ladder. Still not close enough to touch him, but he wasn’t expecting that. 

“Well, I guess it starts with the Ravagers,” he begins. “This one in particular…”

* * *

There’s a lot of uncertain things in Peter’s life right now; a lot of things to be confused about. But at least today, there’s one thing he can be sure of: Rocket is a being a grade-A dickhole. 

The first thing Peter does when they all climb up into the cockpit the next day is dash over to a panel on one of the walls to pull up an extra seat. The Benatar is significantly bigger than the Milano, with the option of adding seats for as many as four more people...not that he’d bothered to make Thor aware of that. A god-man with his sort of strength should be able to handle standing up all day. It was practically doing the guy a favor, giving him an opportunity to burn some calories. He moves quickly and easily now, though, the fog of the past few days seeming to have lifted a bit. It’s not like he’s actually gotten more sleep -- far from it, in fact -- but he still feels a renewed sense of energy at the prospect of showing Gamora what it means to be a Guardian. Even if she’s only here for the units right now.

It only takes him a few moments to get the chair set up and secured into place, and he straightens quickly too. He knows that Gamora was a few seconds behind him, Mantis and Nebula both in front of her. He hopes to be in the captain’s chair and looking like the totally impressive leader he is by the time she gets up here. 

Only when he gets there, it’s already occupied. By Rocket, who totally has his own chair a few feet to the side.

Peter clears his throat. “Um...you lost?”

“Hmm...nope,” Rocket says, in that affected-casual tone he has that sounds like the farthest thing from casual. 

Peter crosses his arms and takes a breath, anger that’s simmering just below the surface threatening to bubble up and explode. He’s already pissed at Rocket for the way he’s been treating Gamora--even though he himself was a dick to her just yesterday. And now he’s pulling this crap. 

“Really?” Peter says, trying to sound just disappointed and not the million other things he’s feeling. “Is this really the time for one of your ridiculous power plays?”

“Hey, I was the captain of this ship for five years til you decided to come back,” Rocket snaps. All attempts at casual are apparently going out the window. 

“ _Decided_ \--?” Peter starts, only to be interrupted by Nebula.

“Excuse you,” she says, low but dangerous. “ _You_ were the captain?”

“I did all the piloting,” Rocket says, not even looking at her. 

“You didn’t try to sit there on the way here from Earth!” Peter points out, the absurdity of this making him want to pull his hair out. This is the kind of thing Rocket used to do back in their first few months of being a team. He’d thought he’d gotten over this. 

“Maybe I was feeling generous,” Rocket says with a sneer. 

“You’ve never felt generous in your life,” Peter says. 

“Boys,” Nebula says warningly, but then she sits in the seat next to Rocket, which is normally _his_ seat. So that does absolutely nothing to help anything, because now he’ll be even less motivated to vacate Peter’s. Which Peter is certain was exactly her intention.

“Hey,” Rocket says, “I’m more generous than you, Star-Boy. Didn’t see _you_ riskin’ your life to go time travelin’ and save half the universe. Oh wait! You couldn’t, because you were too busy bein’ _dead._ ’

Peter recoils at that a bit, but it’s more in confusion than anything else. “Uh, you do know we didn’t have much choice about that? And besides, by that same logic, _you’re_ the one who abandoned _this_ team by not dying with us!”

“I will kill you both myself,” Nebula interjects. 

“Oh!” Drax booms, as he makes his own way up the ladder. “Is there going to be killing? Who is being killed?”

“Nobody,” Peter says through gritted teeth, turning back toward Rocket, “if you give me my damn seat.”

“I am Groot,” says Groot as he climbs the ladder, one-handed so he can still be playing his game. 

“I was hoping for some violence as well,” Drax commiserates. “But we have the job ahead of us! We will be satisfied there.” They both take their seats and Peter decides their desire for violence is the least of his concerns. 

“You don’t even know where we need to go,” he tells Rocket. “So I’m gonna need to pilot us there.”

“I’ll figure it out,” Rocket insists, not budging. 

“Oh, there is a lot of tension in this room,” Mantis says sadly as she too ascends the ladder.

“Yes, but sadly no violence,” Drax informs her. 

All Peter’s focus is suddenly drawn towards the ladder. Gamora’s not up here yet, and there’s no one left she could be waiting on to go up. What if she’s decided not to stay after all? Maybe she hopped off the ship while he was busy up here arguing with his a-hole of a teammate. He thought they’d had a breakthrough last night but maybe he was wrong, or maybe that just wasn’t enough, and the units weren’t enough either and now she’s gone--

He’s only been spiralling for a few seconds when Gamora appears, climbing up the ladder with a confidence he can only tell is affected because he knows her so well. Or knew her. Knew past-future her. 

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Rocket mutters, despite her being only a few seconds behind Mantis. 

“Watch it,” Nebula growls before Peter can. 

“Gamora!” Mantis exclaims excitedly, practically running up to her like a very excited child. “You’re here!” She propels herself forward, clearly intending to hug Gamora before Peter can do anything, say anything to warn her against it.

Gamora takes care of it herself, though, catching Mantis by both forearms before she can get any closer. She doesn’t make any contact with bare skin, Peter notices, and he wonders suddenly whether Nebula has explained to her the way that Mantis’s powers work. If she has, that’s probably for the best. He hasn’t forgotten how unnerved Gamora was by them early on, how long it had taken her to develop a level of comfort with touching Mantis and being close to her.

“Don’t,” Gamora says crisply now.

Mantis’s antennae wilt, but she recovers her enthusiasm quickly, again before Peter can come up with anything to say. “You can have this chair!” she continues, gesturing. “It’s yours!”

“Hers, you mean,” says Gamora, hesitating. She runs her hand along the back of the chair, but doesn’t take the seat. “Not mine.”

“Yours,” Nebula corrects. “I am not going to continue having this debate with you. Take the damn chair.”

Gamora glances at him. He opens his mouth to back up Mantis and Nebula, to tell Gamora to take the seat, it’s hers. But something stops him, something in him hesitates. 

He can’t help but continue to differentiate between the Gamoras, between _his_ Gamora and this one. He knows he’d decided to stop doing that, but how can he, when they’re so different? His Gamora wouldn’t hesitate to take that seat. Of course, she would remember that it was hers in the first place. Is it a betrayal of his Gamora to allow this one to sit in that seat? Surely not. She is still Gamora...she would have become that Gamora, if she hadn’t come forward in time. 

“Yeah,” he says, after he doesn’t know how long a hesitation. “It’s yours.”

“She ain’t never been on this ship before yesterday,” Rocket says. “How can it be her seat?”

“What are you talking about?” Drax asks, sounding sincerely perplexed. “It is Gamora.”

“I will take this one,” Gamora says decisively, before anyone else can state their opinion. She goes to the extra seat he’d set up and sits down, setting her jaw as if daring anyone to protest. 

“You are being ridiculous,” Nebula informs her, which she ignores. 

Peter, faced with the possibility of sitting in Gamora’s seat, vacant because _she_ isn’t here to sit in it, feels his chest clench and he faces Rocket with renewed determination. “If you want the units from this job, give me my seat back.” 

“Make me,” says Rocket, sounding somewhere between a petulant child and a homicidal maniac. 

Peter stalks up to the side of the chair, cursing everything for the fact that this is happening in front of Gamora, but also not about to let Rocket make him look like a fool. It was bad enough the way the others had all treated him in front of Thor, even _his_ Gamora subtly impressed. Bad enough the way they’d ignored his directions on Knowhere, that Gamora had gone and gotten herself--

“Fine,” says Peter, and reaches for the scarf that Rocket is still wearing, intending to pick him up by it. He knows that Rocket is plenty strong enough to fight him off, but he’s smaller and probably not expecting such a violation of the usual respect between them. Well, too bad he violated that respect first.

Rocket moves lightning-quick, though, twisting out of the scarf and turning around in the seat to snap at Peter’s fingers.

“Hey!” he yelps, drawing his hand back just in time to avoid having his skin broken by Rocket’s teeth.

“If none of you are interested in this job,” says Gamora from the back of the room, “then I will gladly do it myself and keep all of the units.”

Maybe he should just let her, Peter thinks. She could totally handle it by herself, and the rest of his team obviously doesn’t deserve the units if they’re gonna be a bunch of jerks. 

“You can have my seat, Peter!” Mantis says brightly. She bounds over to Gamora’s seat and takes it, leaving her usual spot empty. 

He swallows, glancing between Rocket, Gamora, and the empty seat. As satisfying as it might be to punch Rocket in his dumb face right now, he recognizes that that would get him nowhere. And he’s not about to be talked out of this spot. 

“Fine,” he says, as he marches over to the seat and sits down with as much dignity as he can. He doesn’t give the scarf back, stuffing it in his pocket instead. Rocket doesn’t get to be an asshole to him _and_ keep his scarf. Maybe he wasn’t even wearing it because he missed him at all, but just because he thought it looked nice, and he didn’t give a crap about nicking a dead guy’s stuff. 

“It’s a short flight anyway,” Peter says. “You might as well put it on autopilot.”

“I ain’t lazy,” Rocket says, lifting the ship out of the dock. “I’ll fly it myself.”

Peter clenches his hand into a fist. He wonders if there’s a way to give the others the debrief about the job without telling Rocket. Let him wander in with no knowledge and figure it out himself, if he doesn’t want Peter to be captain.

“Fine,” he mutters again, finally, for what feels like the umpteenth time. “Fine, I’ll feed in the coordinates. You can find them yourself.” He has a momentary pang as he pulls up the screen and puts them in, remembering that Gamora really ought to be their navigator. Not that she’d taken up that position immediately, though. It had taken her a while to accept that it, along with all of the other good things she’d come to have in her life, was a thing she deserved. Forcing those thoughts down again, he finishes entering their destination and transmits it to Rocket, not looking at him. 

“This is on Xandar,” says Rocket, as he plots the course. He sounds mildly surprised, and Peter allows himself to be pleased by that.

“Oh, congratulations,” he says sourly. “You remember how to read a map.” 

“We’re doing a job on Xandar?” asks Mantis, sounding excited. To be fair, though, Peter’s relatively certain that would be the case no matter where they were going or what they were doing.

“No,” says Peter, still sarcastically, too irritated with Rocket to be swayed even by Mantis’s ceaseless optimism. “I just thought it would be fun to fly halfway around it before we leave for our actual location.”

“That would be a huge waste of time,” Drax points out unhelpfully. 

“I am Groot.” 

“No, I am not kidding.” Drax sounds confused. “That would be a waste. Why would I be kidding?”

Before that can become its own full blown argument, Peter says, “Yes, it’s on Xandar. We’re helping out the Nova Corps. They’d already taken a hit when Thanos stole the Power Stone…”

He has to take a pause there. The whole team does, it seems, for once not filling the silence. Rocket and Nebula have had five years to process that, but to him, the devastation of Xandar still feels fresh. Plus, every mention of Thanos still makes him want to violently murder the walking nutsack. 

He avoids looking at Gamora, or at anyone else. Instead he focuses on the nav screen in front of him, focuses on giving the team the debrief 

“Then the snap happened not long after,” he finally continues. “So apparently a lot of shit went down during those five years.”

“That is one way of putting it,” Nebula says. 

Rocket snorts. “It happened everywhere else too.”

Peter sighs. He suppresses the urge to throw something at Rocket’s head. “Right, well, the point is, a lot of crime rings formed here. And now that everyone is back from the snap, the Nova Corps are trying to bust them all up. We’re gonna help them by taking out this one.” 

“Excellent!” Drax booms, then claps his hands too for good measure. “I greatly enjoy busting!”

“It will be cathartic,” Nebula agrees. “It seems we could all use some of that right now.”

“Yes,” says Mantis. “Busting is _very_ good for feelings. Especially angry feelings!” She bears her teeth in her now-familiar approximation of ferocious anger, and for a moment he has the urge to laugh hysterically again. 

Instead he turns to finally look at Gamora, needing to see her reaction, and to make sure that she hasn't somehow disappeared while she was out of sight. He catches her clearly unaware, and looking thoroughly overwhelmed, which he really can't blame her for. Then she arranges her face into an expression of indifference, the transformation happening right in front of him but shocking all the same. 

“It seems straightforward enough,” she offers. “An efficient way to get some units.”

“Awww, listen to that,” Rocket breaks in before Peter has a chance to respond. “She likes the job you picked for her. But you know she's still not gonna do you though, right? This ain't the Gamora that likes your junk.”

Peter’s so stunned, for a moment all he can do is gape at him, hardly processing what he just said. This goes beyond being an asshole. To reduce his relationship with Gamora to sex, to imply that he’s attempting to get that from _this_ one...Part of him wants to grab Rocket by the neck, sharp teeth be damned, and throw him from the ship. The other part of him wants to just get up and march out right now. He could. They’ve almost reached their destination--the journey across half a planet is miniscule--and are now going slow enough that he doesn’t actually need to be strapped in. 

Before he can decide which of those options he’s going to go with, Nebula says, “Shut your mouth, you damn fox!” 

Not that she cares about Peter’s feelings, he’s sure, but Rocket clearly upset Gamora too. When Peter risks another glance back at her, he can see how tense she is. He remembers Gamora’s--not this one’s--confusion when they’d first been getting to know each other over whether he wanted more than just sex. 

“Gamora,” he starts, but has no idea what else to say. Not that she gives him a chance to try.

“I will meet you downstairs,” she says stiffly, unfastening her restraint and standing up. Apparently, she has also realized they don’t need to be strapped in anymore. She disappears down the ladder without looking at anybody else. 

“Rocket, what the _fuck_?” Peter finally manages, shock and hurt giving way to anger. 

Rocket just shrugs. “Somebody had to say it.”

“No,” Peter growls. “Nobody did. That was _completely_ unnecessary. I _know_ that she's not -- that she doesn't--” His voice breaks and he gags on the words, apparently physically incapable of articulating the fact that she doesn't love him, though it's been running through his head all too clearly. He clears his throat and wills himself not to throw up. “That doesn't mean you gotta be a creep to her.”

“I ain't the one makin’ moony eyes at my dead girlfriend's clone,” says Rocket, apparently unmoved by everything Peter's just said. 

“Hey--” he starts, but doesn't get a chance to finish. 

“Shut up!” says Nebula, somehow on her feet before he's even had a chance to see her moving. Her voice is loud, commanding. Dangerous in a way it hasn't been for a long time. “All of you shut up! I had half the command of this ship while you were all gone. It's thanks to _me_ you had anywhere to come home to.” She takes a breath and looks around the cockpit, glaring at each of them with a clear challenge to disagree. When nobody does, she continues. “Gamora is my sister. And I want her to stay.”

“Why’s it gotta be all about what you two want?” Rocket half yells. He lands them at the coordinates a lot rougher than he would normally. Peter’s not sure if that’s on purpose or if he’s just that distracted. Once they’ve landed, he points an accusing finger at Nebula, then at Peter. “Maybe not everyone wants her here.”

Peter’s about to tell him that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass what he or anybody else besides Gamora wants, but Nebula once again saves him the trouble. “Oh yeah?” she says, her tone goading. “Let’s see what everyone else wants, huh?” She looks around at everyone. “Who here wants Gamora to stay?”

Peter’s hand shoots up immediately. Mantis and Drax follow. This is the way he’d taught them to vote years and years ago, when the team had needed a solution to resolving arguments. Nebula had always refused to participate when she’d been present, but now she raises her hand along with them. 

They all look at Groot, who’s still staring down at his game. His fingers aren’t moving on it again, though. Those fingers twitch, then slowly, he raises one of his hands, avoiding all of their eyes; particularly, he’s pretty sure, Rocket’s. 

Peter grins at Rocket, smug and satisfied. He keeps his hand in the air to rub it in. 

“The real question,” Nebula says, “is why do you think it has to be all about what _you_ want?”

Rocket glances around at each of them, looking utterly betrayed. By the time he gets to Peter, his gaze is more full of pain than anger, and all the smugness evaporates just like that. 

“You were all gone,” says Rocket, though he's still looking only at Peter as he speaks. “You were gone and I was here. Now you're back, but _she's_ still dead and you all wanna pretend like it ain't true. Well _excuse_ me if I'd rather be loyal to my friend.”

“Rocket,” says Peter, cut to his core by that admission, the closest thing to emotional vulnerability that he's heard from Rocket in a long damn time. He thinks again of the red scarf and feels guilty, then wonders what his Gamora would think of any of this and feels worse still. 

“Forget it,” says Rocket, then gets out of his seat and heads quickly for the ladder. “Come on, Groot. We got a job to do.”

Groot looks like he wants to cry again too, and in truth that seems to be the mood going around the ship in general. For the first time, Peter wonders whether he is being unfair to all of them, nevermind the votes they've just cast. 

“All right,” says Nebula, before he's had a chance to find his voice again. “When you are all ready to act like adults, you may follow me.”

Nobody protests as she makes her way through the cockpit and down the ladder as well.


	5. Chapter 5

If there’s one thing Peter learned from Terran television shows -- and there’s way more than one thing -- it’s that bad guys love to hang out in abandoned warehouses. That was more or less what he was expecting when they strolled up to the coordinates the Nova Corps had given him, and he’s not surprised to find pretty much exactly that. It’s maybe a little bigger than the ones on TV, and it looks like it was originally a lot nicer before this lot got a hold of it, but it’s the same in essence. There’s even plants growing up the sides of some of the walls, and trash littering the outside. These people apparently are not big on lawn care. 

“Okay, Guardians,” he says quietly, stepping over a pile of empty beer bottles to approach a side door. “Remember our goals. We’re here to arrest these people and confiscate all the stuff they stole. We’re not gonna kill anybody. They’re not that level of bad guy.”

“What about stabbing them?” Drax asks earnestly, and too loudly. Nebula shushes him. 

“That could kill them,” Peter says patiently. “So no.”

“What about--”

He doesn’t let Drax finish that question, sensing that if he lets him get on a roll he’ll never stop. “Use only the amount of force necessary to restrain them so the Nova Corps can come collect them when we’re done. That’s what those are for.” He gestures to the devices everyone has clipped to their belts -- in Groot’s case, a belt he made out of vines. “Those will automatically restrain them. All you have to do is aim.”

“I will aim with my knives!” says Drax, loud enough that Peter is now worried about him tipping off anyone who might be inside the building. 

“No,” Peter repeats, sighing. “We just established no stabbing! So also no aiming with knives.”

“He won’t get a chance to stab ‘em,” Rocket interrupts. “‘Cause I’m gonna blow their heads off first.” His shit-eating grin tells Peter that he understood the directions perfectly well but is deciding to be a dick about it just because he can. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise, given where they left things, but he’s still really irritated by it.

“No blowing heads off either,” says Peter, in the tone of voice he used to use with Groot when he was a baby. “That would also kill them. Restraint only.”

“Can’t we at least hurt them a little?” asks Nebula, in her most petulant voice. When Peter turns to glare at her, she smiles in a way that’s absolutely terrifying.

“Restraint _only_ ,” he repeats, then looks around, scanning the area again. Still no sign of activity, thankfully, though now he’s starting to worry about what will happen if nobody is here. That would just figure, busting an empty warehouse.

Groot rolls his eyes for probably the tenth time in a minute, looking like he couldn’t possibly be more annoyed. He hasn’t been allowed to bring any games with him, so he’s moodier than usual. Peter’s gonna go ahead and pretend that’s the reason, anyway. 

“I will restrain them!” Mantis says very earnestly, and also too loudly. 

Gamora, voice dripping in sarcasm but blessedly low in volume, says, “Are we attempting to alert them to our presence so that they’ll come out and attack us first?”

Peter probably ought to stop being surprised by it, but god, she really sounded like--herself, just then. His Gamora would have broken up this argument by now, told them all to stop being childish and do the damn job. But this Gamora is clearly nervous. He wonders if the others can tell. Nebula probably can. 

Gamora’s holding the restraint gun in her hand, examining it even though she had to have figured out how it worked and everything else about it in five seconds. Her hand occasionally twitches towards the sword at her hip. And she keeps looking around, behind her and at the others, on edge. 

He’s got to stop thinking about all that, though. He pushes down the feeling of strangeness that comes from doing a job that is, to her, the first one she’s ever done with them. He supposes it is, since she’s not… He pushes that thought down, too. 

Focus on the job, he reminds himself. It’s a good distraction and something he can do well. When his damn team listens to him, that is. 

For the first time, he finds himself feeling grateful that there hadn’t been much time for a plan in the Kyln, when they’d all managed to come together. Sure, Rocket had had _some_ idea of what they were doing, but the rest of them hadn’t, and there’d been no time to overthink or argue, just them and the things that needed to be done. They’d figured out that they could work together because there’d been no question about it, no acceptable alternative. He wishes, suddenly and bizarrely, that he could relive that type of situation with this Gamora.

Not that he has any wish to get thrown in prison again, or deal with any Infinity Stones for a very long time. Actually, preferably ever.

“Okay,” says Peter, taking a deep breath. “Okay, everybody ready?”

“We’ve been ready,” Gamora answers, a definite note of impatience in her voice now.

He sighs. “All right, so everyone get behind me.” He waits for them to do that, then goes up to the door and tries the handle just in case. It’s locked, of course, so he takes out one of the multi tools he carries for this purpose and sticks it into the lock.

“Now, let’s try to take the sneaky approach here,” he says quietly, as he carefully works the tool. “Go in as quietly as you can. If they don’t notice us when we come in, all the better. That’ll give us a chance to--”

He’s interrupted by the sound of some rather frantic beeping, and he whips his head around just in time to see Rocket a little farther down the outside wall--not even fifteen feet from the door, probably--with what’s clearly a small bomb attached just above his own eye-level. Peter’s gonna take a wild guess and say that’s where the beeping is coming from. 

“Rocket, what the hell are you doing?” he yells. Clearly there’s no point in trying to control the level of their voices anymore, because about two seconds later the bomb goes off, blowing a huge hole in the side of the building. 

“Screw your sneaky approach!” Rocket says, cackling maniacally. “I wanna fight some guys!” With that, he disappears through the newly created doorway with a battle cry, restraint-gun at the ready. Peter can already hear the sounds of shouting and blaster-fire from inside.

“Goddammit, Rocket!” Peter yells after him. 

Gamora doesn’t waste a beat in running through the hole, and the others are quick to follow. 

Peter is about to go after them. Any minute now, he really is. It’s just that suddenly his feet seem to be stuck to the ground. Or maybe it’s this weight on his chest keeping him here. He can’t help but think about the last time the team didn’t listen to him, ignoring his directions, walking past him into the Collector’s. _I told you to go right_.

Suddenly he can't stop picturing the way Gamora had rushed ahead of him, the way he'd had no chance to get between her and Thanos. He'd had no opportunity to protect her at all, and then he'd been left with no choice but to--

He bites his lip until he tastes blood, tries to stop the thoughts, the images, but ends up right back at _you promised!_ ringing in his ears. 

This Gamora has no memory of that, thank god, because he's pretty sure that if she did, she'd be gone in a heartbeat. Still, he should probably tell her sometime if he expects her to trust him. She probably ought to know what an utter failure he is, if the rest of his team hasn't already made it absolutely goddamn clear by then. 

“Incoming, Quill!” Nebula's voice rings out from inside of the warehouse. Clearly there's no modicum of stealth left in their operation now. 

“That is outgoing!” Drax shouts back, as though anyone at all has asked his opinion. 

Half an instant later, a burly Xandarian comes barreling out of the hole in the wall, having apparently eluded the others and their restraint guns. 

He pauses when he sees Peter, as he’d probably expected them all to be inside. They have a stare down for a moment while Peter remembers that oh yeah, there’s a job to do here. He’d pushed down all this shit when he was brought back from the snap so he could help fight Thanos; he can do the same thing here. 

Just as the guy seems to get his bearings and begins to raise his blaster, Peter whips the restraint gun off his hip and shoots him before the other guy can even think about aiming. He lets out a frustrated yell as his arms are wrapped together with glowing yellow rope, which promptly anchors itself, and the Xandarian along with it, to the ground. 

“Struggle all you like,” he tells the cursing man. “You’re never getting out of those.” 

He races through the hole in the wall before the guy gets a chance to respond -- and runs straight into chaos. 

The inside of the place looks exactly how he’d have expected it to. It’s dark and dingy and smells terrible. There are crates and boxes everywhere, so a lot of hiding places, which is both a pro and a con. Oh, and of course a shit ton of people screaming and cursing and firing off blasters at his teammates, who have all apparently decided to do their own thing instead of working together. 

His eyes have just started to adjust to the lower light when he becomes aware of a dark shape hurtling at him, barely has time to brace himself before he gets slammed against the intact segment of wall right next to the hole. The explosion has apparently destabilized something in the ceiling, though, because the impact causes a cloud of dust to fall, choking him. He coughs hard, only to find a knife at his throat-- and Drax blinking dumbly at him as his mistake belatedly registers. 

“Dude!” Peter practically yelps as the knife falls away. He puts a hand to his throat anyway, rubbing the skin there though none of it's been broken. “What the _hell_!” 

“Sorry,” says Drax. “I forgot you were here.”

Before he can find the words for any one of the choice things he's thinking of saying, another two Xandarians come running at them, blasters firing. Peter raises his restraint gun again and captures the one on the left. Drax, taking his own approach as usual, uses a combination of knives and fists to pin the other guy against a large vat of something. Then he shoots the restraint gun at point blank range, leaving the dude both tethered there and really pissed off. 

“All you have to do is shoot the restraints!” Peter yells. Drax, predictably, ignores him and practically tackles someone else to the ground. At least this time it’s not him. 

Peter restrains another man who’s running at him and tries to take stock of his team. 

Groot is nearby, completely ignoring his restraint gun and instead wrapping people up in vines, which is at least working. Mantis is _trying_ , he thinks, though she’s restraining a lot of things that aren’t moving anyway, like some of the boxes, laughing each time. Nebula is possibly the only person doing what she’s supposed to be: focusing on restraining the members of this ring. Hell, she might be able to do this job by herself, with how efficiently she’s taking people down. 

Which is a good thing, because Rocket certainly isn’t helping. Peter spots him rummaging through a crate, probably full of weapons or some kind of tech. 

“Rocket!” Peter yells. “You better be confiscating that stuff and not stealing it!”

“What’s the difference?” he yells back, leaning over into the crate. 

A shot flies over Peter’s head and he ducks just in time, shooting the guy who’d fired it a second later. “Could you maybe focus on the people who are shooting at us?” he gripes. He doesn’t get a chance to see if Rocket listened, though, because it’s then that he finally spots Gamora, and his heart stops. 

She’s in a rare area clear of most crates or boxes and she’s hunched over, but not from an injury, he realizes with a jolt of relief. She’s in that position because she’s leaning over the body of one of the guys they’re after, two fingers against his neck. The dude isn’t moving, probably isn’t even conscious.

His relief is short-lived, though, because the next thing he becomes aware of is the fact that three of the thugs they're fighting have also noticed her position and are converging on her. She can take care of herself, he knows. She's probably aware of their approach, only a split second away from turning and taking them out--

Only she isn't. As the Xandarians approach, Gamora leans further over the body she's been examining, her ear over his chest. 

And then, as Peter watches helplessly, too far away to help immediately, one of the thugs throws a restraint of his own that instantly pins her arms to her sides. Gamora starts to turn then but it's too late. The Xandarian grabs her by the back of her jacket and hauls her into the air, tall enough that he can hold her with her feet off the floor. Peter gets a terrible flash of the way Thanos had held her on Knowhere, like nothing more than a plaything. 

She attempts to kick out but it's ineffective, only earns her the muzzle of a blaster pressed to the side of her head. 

“Guardians!” the Xandarian bellows in her face. “You're supposed to be dead!”

“Hey asshole!” Peter shouts as loud as he can, and throws himself into the air as he fires the jets on his boots. 

That thankfully gets the guy’s attention; he loves it when bad guys respond to _asshole_. “Made ya look!” he yells, and promptly shoots a restraint at him. It’s only the fact that’s already got the restraint gun in his hand that spares this asshole’s life, because otherwise he’d have gone right for his blaster. 

He’s still at a bit of a distance but his aim is true, and the Xandarian giant drops his blaster and Gamora as he’s pulled to the ground by the ropes. 

Gamora doesn’t miss a beat. She’s got the restraints off and her weapons out before her feet even hit the ground, and by the time Peter actually makes it over to her, she’s restrained one of the others who cornered her, and she’s got her sword held under the chin of the other. Before she can get carried away, Peter restrains that guy too and pulls Gamora behind a nearby crate for cover.

“Are you okay?” he asks frantically, trying to look her over in the darkness and the chaos. She looks uninjured, though maybe a little jumpy. She looks down at the Godslayer in her hand and immediately re-sheathes it. 

“I’m fine,” she says curtly, then after a beat, “Thank you.” 

“What was that all about?” he asks, too focused on his concern for her to even acknowledge the gratitude. Gamora almost never gets--or almost never _got_ \--caught unaware, so he has no idea why she’d put herself in a vulnerable position like that now. 

“They took me by surprise,” she answers, looking angry now, probably at herself as much as at the thugs. She shakes her head. “I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

She takes a quick glance over the crate, apparently spots some more Xandarians, and fires off two shots of the restraint gun before ducking again. Then she moves to throw herself back into the fight. Peter reacts purely on instinct, catching her wrist to keep her behind the cover, because she clearly isn’t as okay as she wants him to believe and he isn’t about to watch her go get herself hurt or worse. 

A moment later he realizes what he’s done and pulls his hand back like the contact has burned him, half expecting her to either bolt or knee him in the junk again. Instead her gaze follows his hand, and for an instant he thinks he sees a flash of hurt pass over her face. Then again, maybe it’s just the light, the chaos, and wishful thinking. 

“What?” she asks, studying him.

Peter shakes his head, feeling like he should apologize, though he’s not entirely sure what for. “I just-- I didn’t mean the assholes sneaking up on you. What were you doing before that?”

“What are you talking about?” she asks, in a way that tells him she knows exactly what she’s talking about. 

“I saw you like--trying to check that guys vital signs!” he says, gesturing beyond the crate. “You put yourself in danger!”

“I was making sure he was alive!” she says defensively. 

“Wha--why?” Peter asks. He always knew Gamora was kind, but checking on an enemy in the middle of a firefight? 

“Because you said not to kill anyone and I thought I killed him!” she snaps. She sounds mad, but that’s fear he sees in her eyes. And sadness, too. That part starts to take over, as she sounds more resigned than angry. “I didn’t, but...I should have just shot him with the restraints. But I hit him first and it was too hard. He fell and hit his head on a metal box and I…” She shakes her head. “This is why I could never be a hero.”

“Gamora--” he starts to protest, but then she’s lifting her gun and firing a restraint about two inches from his shoulder. He starts--and maybe yelps a tiny bit out of surprise--and turns to see a Xandarian behind him, now strapped to the ground. By the time he turns to look back at Gamora, she’s run back into the fray. 

Peter stays behind the crate for a few more moments, watching her. He's worried at first that she's going to get herself into trouble again, that she’s too unnerved to handle such a chaotic situation. Or maybe that she isn’t, in fact, the same woman that he knew. Maybe she doesn’t have the same fighting skills as _his_ Gamora. Maybe this is about to be one more disappointment, one more kick to the teeth realization that the woman he loves more than anything else in the universe is gone forever, never coming back in any form.

It isn’t, though. She seems to find her bearings almost immediately, keeping her sword sheathed at her hip and the restraint gun up at the ready in her left hand. She fires it over the crate he’s currently hiding behind, and Peter glances over his shoulder again to see that one of the Xandarians had been in the process of sneaking up on him, probably about to put a blaster to _his_ head.

“You’re welcome,” she mouths, and he sees it clearly though it’s far too loud to hear from across the room. Then she spins and fires off three more shots with scarcely any time to aim, catching two of the thugs who were running toward Nebula, and a third who’d been fighting Groot’s vines.

He can’t help but smile a little; that’s more like her. And really, so was that self-doubt. Early on, Gamora was plagued by the fear that she wasn’t a good person, and couldn’t be more than what Thanos made her. Even later, in moments of insecurity, those fears still surfaced. 

A shot flies over his head, forcing him to duck down again. Okay, maybe it’s time to actually follow his own directions and focus on the job here. 

He comes out from behind the crate and fires a restraint, but his target ducks behind a large support beam and it misses. But still, he seems to be one of few left. It should be no trouble to take out the rest. Peter’s about to offer the team a preemptive congratulations when suddenly there’s what seems like a hundred blaster shots being fired off at once, from multiple directions. 

“Shit!” he yells, ducking behind a stack of metal boxes. He can hear the ping of shots hitting the front of the boxes and just hopes they’re strong enough to withstand the shots. He’s pretty sure the rest of the team also took their own cover, some of them echoing his curse as well. Where the hell did that come from? 

Crouching low, Peter activates his mask and peeks around the edge of his cover to scan for bodies. He locks in on the problem quickly: there are only three of these Xandarians left, but they’ve all got two huge blasters each and they seem to be firing without even considering aiming, just keeping their fingers on the trigger and hoping something hits. 

They’re standing back to back in a circle in the center of the room, too, which pretty much eliminates any hope that they might do him a favor and accidentally shoot one another. If he doesn’t do something soon, it’s clear that this is going to put everyone in danger. He feels a momentary wave of anxiety at that possibility, at the thought that he might have put his whole team at risk yet again, and they’re not even working well together. 

But then he shakes it off: That just means that he needs to be the leader _they_ need. He can take care of this and them.

“Hey!” Peter yells, jumping out from behind the crate. “Hey, dickwads!” Time to vary the insults a bit, wouldn’t want to get overly predictable. 

The Xandarians turn simultaneously to focus their fire on him, which is exactly what he expected. He fires the jets on his boots as they do, throwing himself into a mid-air roll that evades their shots. Then he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and grabs a flash grenade, closing his eyes as he throws it to avoid its temporary blinding effects. When he opens them again, the Xandarians are blinking in confusion and clutching at their heads.

All it takes is three quick shots of his restraint gun, and the fight is over.

He lands and deactivates his mask so he can look around in satisfaction. All the members of the crime ring -- well, the ones who are here, anyway -- are struggling against their restraints in vain. There’s only one hole in the building, so definitely not their worst job damage-wise. And the team all seem to be uninjured. And he got the winning move at the end, so all in all, a good job. 

“Was the flip really necessary?” Nebula asks disdainfully. 

“Wha--yes, of course it was,” Peter says. 

He can see Groot roll his eyes even from across the room. “I am Groot.”

Peter sputters. “I was _not_ showing off! It was totally strategic! Evasive maneuvers!”

“How is ballet in the air strategic?” Rocket asks from where he’s still rummaging through one of the boxes. 

“It was very beautiful!” Mantis says. 

“I got them, didn’t I?” Peter says. “Which you’re welcome for, by the way.”

“Got who?” Drax asks. 

“Who--them!” Peter says, gesturing to the three Xandarians restrained together. “The guys who were shooting at us like maniacs!”

“When did that happen?” he asks. 

“Just now,” Nebula says, looking at Drax the way she looks at all of them a lot of the time: like she can’t believe anyone could be so stupid. 

“Oh,” Drax says, unconcerned. “I stopped paying attention.”

“How--whatever,” Peter mutters. He rubs his hand over his face and finally lets himself look where he’s been wanting to this whole time: at Gamora. She’s not rolling her eyes or ignoring him like the others. The look she’s giving him is almost...appraising. Almost like she’s considering being impressed. It’s certainly not the way she’d looked at him on Earth, when he’d thought she was...

He shakes his head. Don’t think about that. Focus on the job. 

“All right, guys, time to call the Nova Corps to clean up this mess,” he says, putting on his leader voice. “Rocket, quit stealing stuff!”

“Make me!” 

Peter sighs. But hey, he thinks, at least arguing with Rocket is a distraction. He’ll take whatever he can get.

* * *

Peter has had plenty of daydreams about being a hero.

In fact, it was pretty much all he fantasized about as a kid. Well, that and having David Hasselhoff for a dad. And later, having his mother wake up miraculously cured of her tumor. So yeah, definitely some other stuff too, but plenty of time spent imagining being a hero, seeing posters of himself on people’s walls, his face on television, an action figure based on him in the stores. Saving the galaxy a couple of times, it turns out, was not enough to warrant that. 

Dying was, though, apparently.

He takes about ten steps into Nova headquarters and freezes, finding himself confronted with a statue of...well, himself. And the others, of course, but it’s still the most jarring to see his own face carved into shiny metal. The statue of Gamora is right beside his, standing close by. They’re both turned slightly inward, almost facing each other. There’s something about the expression on her carved face that makes his stomach drop even further. Somehow this completely inanimate version of her seems to radiate more love and support than he’s felt from her real-life counterpart in the past few days combined.

“It is us!” Mantis yells excitedly, bounding up to the statue and pointing. 

“That looks nothing like me,” Drax says, apparently unimpressed. 

It totally does, though. The whole team is there, besides Rocket and Nebula, and aside from the fact that Groot doesn’t have his video game, it’s pretty accurate. His and Gamora’s statues are standing closer together than the rest and in the middle. Like leaders. 

At the bottom of the group statue, a plaque reads: _In memory of the fallen Guardians_ , and under each of their figures: _Mantis, Groot, Peter “Star-Lord” Quill, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer_. 

“Yeah, they wanted to honor you or somethin’,” Rocket mutters. Peter’s not surprised that he knew and didn’t bother to warn them, but he can’t find the energy to call him out on that when he’s too busy trying not to cry. 

Well, that and subtly watching Gamora’s reaction. She’s standing a little farther back than the rest of them, but her eyes are fixed on her own likeness, staring at it with a mixture of awe and incredulity, like she doesn’t believe what she’s seeing. This is strange enough for him now, seeing a statue of himself and the others in the lobby of a major government headquarters. He can’t imagine how he’d have felt about it four-- _nine_ \--years ago. 

“You guys go ahead,” Peter tells Nebula, since she seems to be the closest thing to a functional adult right now. (And the irony is not lost on him, that in the past he would have felt crazy for even having that thought, but there are a lot _crazier_ things happening now, relatively speaking.) “Tell Dey that Gamora and I will catch up in a bit.”

She nods, glances at Gamora, then back at him and lowers her voice. “I will have some information to update him on anyway.”

“I know you’re talking about me,” says Gamora, looking back and forth between the two of them, then glaring at Nebula in particular. “You know I am the deadliest assassin in this galaxy, right? I am neither a child nor an idiot.”

Nebula rolls her eyes and ignores Gamora, turning back to Peter. “You enjoy her. I will see you in a few minutes.” Then she walks away, following the others. Mantis is practically skipping, which makes Nebula shake her head all over again.

Peter sighs, glancing back and forth between Gamora and the statue. He wishes her attention had stayed on it, that Nebula hadn’t decided to mention anything about talking to Dey. Obviously the Nova Corps deserves some sort of explanation about this situation, but it still feels...insensitive, considering.

“So,” he says finally, “how you feelin’ about...you know...stuff?”

“What _stuff_?” she asks. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she’s standing about as stiff as anyone could. That’s pretty much his answer right there, but he elaborates anyway. 

“Uh, well...the job, for one,” he says, deciding to go with that, ease into this. 

“We accomplished it,” she says simply.

“We did,” he agrees. It always was hard to get Gamora to open up back in the early days, he reminds himself. For some reason, it felt a whole lot easier when they were getting to know each other for the first time, the real first time. Now, he struggles to come up with something else to say, some way to make this conversation flow. 

Gamora gets impatient after a few seconds. “Did you perhaps mean how do I feel about seeing a statue of the other me immortalized as a hero?”

He almost smiles; that sounded like her. “That uh, might have been one of the things I was including under the umbrella of _stuff_. But you know, that’s...that is…” He gestures back to the statue, then to her. 

“Don’t say that is me,” she says, sounding weary. “You don’t believe it either. I can tell you don’t.”

“I do too!” he says, too defensively. “I mean, I _know_ it’s not _quite_ you, but it _is_ you before you would be...you.” He finally stops because this is hurting his head and also making him unbearably sad, because it’s leading him down the path of thinking about things. 

Gamora shakes her head. “I could never be that person. I could not become someone who the Nova Corps honored with a statue.” 

Now he does smile, his eyes stinging and watering. Even as he’s contradicting the thought, doubting himself and Nebula, he can’t deny the way his heart aches at how _exactly_ she sounds like the woman he’s lost. 

She catches his reaction, arches an eyebrow in a way that’s mostly curious and a bit challenging, not at all unkind. “What?”

“Just--” He shakes his head, clears his throat. The way that she’s looking at him makes his entire body feel flushed, not quite in an aroused way, but definitely a thrill of...something. “That’s exactly what you -- she -- what you would...have said if this was future you a few years -- You know what? That’s way too much of a mind fuck. Nevermind.”

Gamora scoffs a short laugh, though there’s more incredulity than mirth in it. “How could she have doubted her status as a hero? When people built monuments to her saving the galaxy.”

“Well,” says Peter, “I’ll tell you a secret if you promise not to share it.”

She considers him, then leans in, though she still looks just a bit suspicious. “What?”

“She never thought she was that person either,” he stage whispers. “That was part of what made her so good. _She_ never thought about it as being good. She just did it.”

He can see her mind work as she takes that in. She still looks suspicious, still disbelieving, but she’s at least thinking about considering believing him. He can tell because _god_ the look on her face is so familiar, it makes his heart ache. 

The moment is interrupted by Rocket, which maybe isn’t a bad thing. He’s stuck his head out from behind the door on the other side of the lobby. “Hey! Are you idiots done staring at your own statues? We got shit to do!”

“He’s just jealous he doesn’t have a statue,” Peter mutters. Gamora doesn’t say anything to that, but she immediately starts toward the door so that he has to hurry to catch up with her. 

He’s grateful for the distraction when they enter the next room, an atrium not that much smaller than the main lobby, and he’s greeted by the sight of a familiar, smiling face. 

“Dey!” he exclaims and embraces him warmly, even though in their entire four year friendship, he never remembers hugging him. 

“It’s so good to see you, Peter,” Dey says, squeezing his shoulder when he pulls away. He looks older, Peter observes sadly. He must have survived the snap. It occurs to Peter to ask after his family, but isn’t sure if this is the right time. 

Dey’s still smiling when he turns to Gamora, and Peter’s grateful that the others filled him in because he can’t imagine this Gamora’s response to him trying to hug her. “It’s nice to--well, meet you, I guess,” Dey says, holding out his hand. Gamora slowly, with a great amount of suspicion, shakes it. “I knew you before. I’m Dey.” 

Her expression turns shrewd, somehow even more suspicious though he wouldn't have thought that was possible. “I know who you are. You're Nova Corps. You and your people tried to arrest me on more than one occasion. With no success, of course.”

Peter realizes with a little shock that of course she knows of Dey, knows of the Nova Corps. He remembers the way she'd been treated in the Kyln, the guards who hadn't cared if she'd been tortured by the other inmates, or even been killed. Dey had known him as an outlaw too, but it's been so long since Peter's thought of him that way that he hasn't even considered how Gamora might see the situation. 

“Yeah,” says Peter, glancing back and forth between the two of them anxiously. “We all met under kinda -- kinda weird circumstances, but Dey is our friend now.”

Dey nods, apparently not too bothered by her reaction. Maybe he'd even had the forethought to expect it. “You saved my family, even if you don't know it yet. Back then and -- and more, uh, recently.”

“Oh,” Peter says softly. “Were they…?”

Dey thankfully doesn’t need him to finish the question. “Yeah,” he says, a lot of pain in that single syllable. “But they’re back now. I know you guys were in that fight, so this is the second time, at least, that my family is alive because of you. Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Drax says, unusually solemn. They’re all unusually quiet for a beat, the weight of recent events heavy in the air around them. Gamora doesn’t seem to know what to do with a _thank you_ like that; he remembers how stunned she’d been when they’d suddenly been treated like heroes by the Nova Corps after Ronan, though she’d been more pleased then too. 

“We are also grateful,” comes a new voice as Nova Prime steps into the room, along with a few other Nova Corps officers, “for your help today.”

“It was very easy!” Mantis says cheerfully. 

Rocket elbows her in the leg. “Not that we won’t also be grateful for our payment.” 

“I assume you recognize her?” Peter whispers to Gamora, who nods stiffly. “Hey, remember these people like you, okay? We help them out.” 

“They like _her_ ,” she whispers back, still tense. But hey, at least she’s talking to him, he reasons. He can totally handle being her confidant, even if it’s just for her complaining, telling him how much she isn’t...well, herself. That’s _almost_ like her trusting him.

“Well,” says Peter, “she doesn’t see you any differently, no matter what you think. So try to remember that she likes you. Just like I do.” And that’s true, he thinks. Undeniably. Even as he feels torn, even as that damn statue reminds him of everything that he’s lost. Gamora is here with him now, trying to figure out where and how she fits, and he _likes_ her. Just like he probably would in any timeline, in any life.

Her eyes widen a bit at that; she clearly hasn’t missed what he’s said, or the specific meaning behind it. She doesn’t say anything, though, and maybe that’s good. At least she hasn’t denied it or called him an idiot.

“You will have your payment, of course,” says Nova Prime, giving Rocket a knowing smile. “But I was also hoping that some of you could fill me in regarding the recent events on Terra.”

“I’ll do it,” Peter volunteers immediately, even though it’s far from his favorite topic. He’s the captain, so it’s his responsibility. 

“I will help as well,” Gamora says immediately. 

He looks at her, surprised, though maybe he shouldn’t be. There have been countless times where he and Gamora debriefed the Nova Corps on their own, while the others did their own thing. Most of the team tended to get bored, but he never got bored as long as he was with Gamora… And that had started early, right after the War Over Xandar. 

“I know parts of the story you do not,” she says matter-of-factly, dashing a bit of hope he hadn’t even been able to articulate for himself yet. Obviously she only wants to come along for practical purposes, not because they’re partners and this is something they do together. 

“We need to inventory the supplies you helped bring over,” Dey informs the others. “And arrange your payment.”

“I don’t like that first part,” Rocket says. “But I’m stickin’ by the money.” 

“We’ll meet up with you later,” Peter says. Rocket ignores him as he follows Dey out of the room, but Mantis and Drax wave. Nebula casts a glance at Gamora before she leaves, and Groot trails behind with his game. 

“The two of you will be excellent,” says Nova Prime, nodding at each of them before turning to lead the way back out through the lobby. They’re headed toward one of the briefing rooms in the east wing of the building, he knows. It’s more private, and will have equipment for recording the information they’re about to share.

Gamora doesn’t know where they’re going, though, he realizes. She looks even more tense, even more suspicious though she’s just volunteered to come along. He wonders suddenly whether she did that because she was afraid of what he might say about her outside of her presence. Or whether she might be worried about what could happen to him, alone in a room with Nova personnel. Either one must seem like a threat to her.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs to her as they walk, knowing that her enhanced hearing will pick it up. He has the sudden urge to just reach out and take her hand, has to remind himself that it wouldn’t be reassuring to her now. “We’re just going to a room where we can talk privately. We do it all the time.”

She relaxes the slightest bit, but it’s short-lived. As they pass through a sliding glass door into the hallway that leads to the briefing rooms, he hears the sound of running behind him, then someone calling their names. Gamora’s hand goes to her sword and Peter turns quickly, just in time to see a couple of breathless young Xandarians running up to them. 

“Star-Lord!” pants the younger of the two boys, who looks just a few years older than Peter was when he’d left Earth. “Gamora! Sorry! Sorry, but can -- Can I take a picture with you?”

“A picture?” Gamora asks, as if that is one of the most suspicious things she’s ever heard. “Why?” 

“Because they think we’re cool!” he says, trying to convey without saying so directly that these kids don’t have a nefarious purpose. He’s not surprised she’s suspicious of them; at this point, the idea that someone would want _anything_ from her for a good reason is so foreign it probably didn’t even occur to her. Even later on, she...his Gamora...though she got used to it, and did it willingly for people who were nice about it, she still never quite understood it. 

“Sorry,” says the older kid. “He’s such a dork.”

“You wanted a picture too!” the other one says, glaring at him. Brothers, Peter guesses. 

“Aren’t you children supposed to stay with your tour group?” Nova Prime says, and the boys’ heads whip towards her. Judging by the horror of their expressions, they didn’t notice her there before, or at least didn’t recognize her until now. 

“S-sorry, ma’am,” the older one stammers, the younger one too panicked to speak. “We just uh...got lost.”

“Did you now?” she asks. Peter’s pretty sure she’s just messing with them, and this is an easy instinct to follow, even when his heart is too preoccupied to really be into it: ham it up for the fans. 

“It’s a big building you know,” he tells Nova Prime, and the boys nod vigorously. “Very easy to get lost in.” He turns to Gamora, who’s watching this all with shrewd eyes. “What do you say, Gamora? Give the kids a picture, then we can send them back to their group?”

“Would that not be rewarding them for breaking the rules?” asks Gamora. She still looks a bit suspicious, a bit tense, but her hand has fallen away from her sword.

For a second Peter worries that he’s made a mistake, that he should have just let Nova Prime shoo them away. The last thing he wants is to lose the modicum of trust he has with Gamora, and to create a situation where the kids get disappointed through no fault of their own by one of their heroes.

“Well,” says Peter, looking between everyone involved, then deciding that he’s started this, so he’s gotta finish. He puts on his best hustle face. “True, but they _did_ say they got lost. And clearly we’d _mostly_ be rewarding their _excellent_ taste in role models.”

“They didn’t ask for a picture with me,” says Nova Prime, which has him momentarily taken aback. Then she smiles, though, and he realizes that he’s playing this exactly right.

Gamora still looks lost, guarded, but she hasn’t outright refused yet. She studies him, then the boys. The younger one looks like he’s trying not to cry, and Peter is definitely still worried about that part of this situation. 

Finally she nods, apparently deciding to go with it, which is probably some kind of miracle. Or maybe he _has_ managed to impress her more than he’s realized. “All right. One picture. Then straight back where you came from.”

That brightens the kids right up. “Yes, ma’am!” the older one says, then hurriedly sets his holo up to hover in front of them. 

Gamora doesn’t smile or pose. She keeps her arms crossed and stares down the holo, probably watching it to make sure it’s safe. Peter doesn’t want that to seem odd to the kids, so he crosses his arms too and stands next to her, activating his mask. “Strike your most badass poses,” he tells the boys, who nod eagerly, copying his and Gamora’s stances as they stand in front of them. 

“Take picture,” the older boy says, and a second later the holo makes a chime to indicate that it has. 

“Run along now,” Nova Prime says. “Right back to your tour group. I’ll be checking up to make sure you did.” 

“Yes, ma’am, we will!” the younger boy says, though he’s still looking at Peter and Gamora, grinning breathlessly. “Thank you!” 

“Anytime, kid,” Peter says. He deactivates his mask and high-fives them both. Gamora nods at them curtly, and the older boy grabs the holo out of the air before they run back in the direction they came from. 

Gamora is staring at the empty hallway after them, still looking flummoxed about what just happened. That lost look on her face tugs at his heart; she looks so like she did after the War Over Xandar, when they were getting requests like that quite a bit for a while. 

“This happens sometimes,” he explains to her. “Especially on Xandar. The Guardians of the Galaxy are pretty famous around here.”

“With good reason,” says Nova Prime. She opens a door to their left and motions them inside. 

Gamora pauses predictably, though it's unclear whether she's reacting to that statement or debating whether it's safe to enter the new room, which appears to be empty. Knowing her, probably both. 

“Yeah,” says Peter, deciding to continue hamming it up. “You saw the statue and everything!”

“I did,” she allows. “But _I_ am not a Guardian of the Galaxy. You must know that.” She's looking at Nova Prime as she says it, and the words sound like a bit of a challenge. 

Nova Prime just smiles knowingly, though, and Peter remembers suddenly that Nebula has become as close a contact with her as he is. 

“Oh, aren't you now?” she asks indulgently. “I was told that you were instrumental in helping to defeat Thanos. Is that not true?”

Now it's Gamora's turn to look taken aback. She considers, pressing her lips together, but she can't deny that statement outright. “I do not know that I would use the word ‘instrumental.’ But I did...help in the effort to defeat him.”

“You gave up your home and your place in time to act as a Guardian,” says Nova Prime. She shoots a knowing glance at Peter before she continues. “According to my understanding of the group, those actions by definition _make_ you a Guardian.”

Gamora looks to him as if for confirmation and he nods. “You already helped save the whole universe. How much more Guardian can you get? We’d totally change our name to Guardians of the Universe if it had a better ring to it.”

Gamora still seems a little skeptical, but he’s heartened because he knows that look on her face: she _wants_ to believe them. She just doesn’t feel like she can. She at least enters the room, a small conference room, with a table and some chairs and a large floor-to-ceiling window with views of Xandar out around them. It’s a pretty view, and Peter notices Gamora’s gaze lingers there for a moment before she tears it away. 

“If you need more proof,” Nova Prime says, seeming to realize that she does, “we do a scan of all those who enter this building, for biometrics and the like.”

“That sounds rather invasive,” Gamora says, but she doesn’t sound surprised. It’s not an uncommon practice on planets with the technology for it. 

“It is for security,” Nova Prime says, unconcerned. She pulls up a holo projection from the center of the table, and Peter’s reminded almost eerily of the first time he was in this building, when it was _his_ info on a screen in front of them with new knowledge about his heritage. And Gamora by his side.

He’s going to be here for her now, he thinks. No matter how anxious he is now as he thinks about what Nova Prime might be about to show them. Even if she says this is an entirely different woman, a stranger, that his Gamora is never coming back...even then, he’ll support her, because it’s the right thing to do. 

“This,” says Nova Prime, gesturing to the first scan she’s pulled up, “is your biometric scan from today.”

Gamora nods, doesn’t comment, though she still looks apprehensive.

Nova Prime pulls up another scan, overlaying them. “And this is the scan we took nine years ago, after the Guardians defeated Ronan. You’ll notice that on the surface, all of your biometrics are identical. In terms of height, weight, body composition, right down to your DNA, they are the same.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow. “No differences at all?”

“Ah,” says Nova Prime. “Not on that level. But -- “ She adjusts the display, zooming in on what appears to be a set of brain scans from the two time points. Here there are obvious differences, areas where the overlaid images diverge. “This is your synaptic map, a measure of your brain activity.”

“So I am _not_ the same as her,” says Gamora, her tone an odd mix of triumph and disappointment. 

“That depends on your definition of ‘the same’,” says Nova Prime. She pulls up two more synaptic maps. “This is Peter Quill on the day after the War Over Xandar. And _this_ is his brain scan today.” These two are even more discrepant, enough that just looking at them makes Peter’s head ache a bit. 

“If we took another scan tomorrow,” Nova Prime continues, “it would look a little different still. Another scan a year from now: quite a bit different. And so on, for everybody we scan. And indeed, everybody we don’t.”

“So what are you saying?” Peter asks, rubbing his forehead. He’s not dumb--no matter what Rocket says, or how he feels sometimes--but he hasn’t exactly gotten a lot of formal science education in his life. Unless that time he sculpted a model brain out of clay in elementary school counts. He doesn’t think that’s going to help him out here, though. 

“If you say that this person and this person are not the same,” Nova Prime says, pointing between the two Gamora scans. Then she switches and points to both of Peter’s scans. “Then this person and this person are equally not the same. Moreso, even, as there are more differences in Mr. Quill’s scans.”

“So why are the scans different?” Peter asks, still trying to wrap his mind around this. 

“Experiences,” Nova Prime says. “Our experiences change our synaptic connections. So if you look at it this way, everybody is different from who they were yesterday. And yet they are still the same. Gamora, you are no more different from yourself at another point in time than Mr. Quill is from himself nine years ago.” 

Gamora looks at the projections for a long moment, an expression on her face that he can’t quite read. He watches as she reaches out, runs her fingers through the shimmery scan a few times, then spins each one of them fully around, examining them. She looks like she’s searching for answers, for the truth of her own mind, her own...soul. 

He remembers that all too well, the way it had felt like a crack in the foundation of his reality when he’d learned that he wasn’t entirely human. As happy as that day had been overall, it had left him unsettled for a while. Gamora had helped him deal with it then, he remembers. So, again, now it’s his turn to repay her the favor. And she _is_ the same, he thinks, according to Nova Prime. At least as much the same as he is, compared to nine years ago. 

“What are the chances that I will ever be exactly the same as she -- as _I_ would have been on this day, had Thanos not interfered?” asks Gamora, almost as though reading his thoughts.

“Well, you won’t be,” says Nova Prime, her tone decisive now. “Just as Mr. Quill won’t be. Because those things _did_ happen, to both of you.”

Gamora looks at Nova Prime, then at Peter. Then she nods. Her expression is inscrutable, even to him, but he has the distinct impression that she’s accepted at least a part of what they’re being told. 

“Speaking of those events,” says Nova Prime. “Perhaps the two of you could fill me in now?”

Peter nods, puts his exaggerated smile on again. “Sure, but it’s gonna take a while. Long story and all. Maybe we could get some snacks delivered?”

Nova Prime shakes her head fondly, but she presses the button to open the intercom line with her staff. “It’s good to have you back, Mr. Quill.”


	6. Chapter 6

This all still feels kind of surreal to Gamora. 

The entire last few days have felt surreal, some moments more than others. Earlier today, meeting with the Nova Corps, the Nova _Prime_ , who all talked to her like she’s a friend, had been some of the stranger moments. Being asked to take a picture by two kids who considered her a hero had been up there as well. But now, standing in front of a mirror in her room--the room she’s been staying in, the room she and Quill shared in a life she does not remember--seeing herself in clothing that she purchased for herself, by her choice, to her own taste...this might be at the top of the list. 

The pants are plain black, simple enough, though more comfortable than her usual. Her Godslayer is still strapped to her hip. That part isn’t so different. But the shirt... It’s the most colorful thing she’s worn in two decades--that she has memory of, anyway. There’s black in it too, but it’s mostly pink, with some bits of yellow, in a vaguely floral pattern.

She’d chosen this _herself_ , when they’d gone shopping on Xandar after the meeting with the Nova Corps. That had been Quill’s idea; get her some clothes that felt like her own, he’d said, even though she technically already has plenty. She’d told him that was unnecessary, but she has to admit now that it does feel different. 

She doesn't like to think that he knows her as well as he thinks he does. Doesn't like to imagine the possibility of a life where he might have loved her, where she might have loved _him._ Where they might have been foolish enough to do those things despite the specter of Thanos on the horizon. Where he has so clearly been devastated by that decision. 

It isn't that there's anything so bad about him. Not at all, really. True, he's sort of a fool at times, and very much a Terran (at least, judging by her limited knowledge of the species), but he does seem to be honorable and well-intentioned. She wrinkles her nose at her reflection for that thought. It's exactly the sort of thing that seems to have gotten her other, future self...well, murdered. The idea of a life where she might have allowed herself any such intimate connections would be unsettling enough without knowing _that_ was how it ended. 

So her survival instincts were right all along. Though, she has to acknowledge, trusting Nebula -- _this_ Nebula, anyway -- seems to have been a good decision. Had Thanos been allowed to get the Stones, she would not be standing here now.

Making a soft sound of irritation at herself, she shoves those thoughts to the back of her mind and tries to focus on running a brush through her hair. 

With her hairbrush, that apparently her future self had bought. Or, her past self, she supposes. Or just herself? But a version of herself that had experiences she doesn’t. No matter what Nova Prime or Nebula say, (or Drax or Mantis, as neither of them seem to distinguish between her two selves at all) Gamora still doesn’t know quite how to think about the other her. 

It still seems like there are two Gamoras to her, though, even though she knows technically there is only one; the same Gamora, from two different points in time. But to her, Gamora right now, staring into this mirror, the experiences the other Gamora had during those four years are never going to happen for her. She won’t be killed in the way she would have been, had she stayed in her time to have those experiences. So she’s lost it all, the good and the bad. She’s been spared, and given a chance at life free from Thanos. 

Actually, she’s amending her earlier thought: _that_ , a life free from Thanos, is the most surreal part of all this. It’s something that she never really believed was possible, much as she’s always longed for it. And now here she is. Free. Looking at an image of herself in the mirror that seems almost as foreign as a version of herself that has a family. 

She’s hardly ever seen her hair this way; curls brushed out into soft waves. It looks...shiny. Clean. Beautiful. 

Gamora hesitates for only a moment before setting the brush down and then pulling just a bit of hair from the back of her neck over her shoulder. Her movements are practiced and familiar as she parts it into three sections and begins the miniature braid that marks her as a Zehoberei warrior. 

She had thought that perhaps in the future -- or, well, in a future where she was somehow comfortable enough to have a family -- that she might have stopped wearing it, might have become somehow too soft. But that clearly isn't the case because there on the vanity she's seated at--scarcely more than a shelf sticking out of the wall and a short stool--is a small shelf filled with the bands and decorative pieces she recognizes so well. There are some new ones among them, but somehow she finds that oddly comforting. A sign of growth, of change, but of enduring connection as well. 

She gets about halfway down the braid before deciding it's time for some sort of decoration. The shelf contains beads that are familiar to her, though some of them are brighter than she thinks she would have allowed herself before. Looking at her shirt again, she selects a pink one and threads it on. When she gets to the bottom of the braid she considers again, this time selecting an ornament that's clearly intended to be in the shape of a flower. 

It looks beautiful. She finds herself getting a little choked up as she looks at it, and furiously chides herself for being emotional over her appearance. But really, it’s about so much more than that. Hair was very important to her people, and the only connection she has left. And just the freedom to be able to make herself look nice is overwhelming on its own. 

She must have been at this for a while, because her reverie is eventually broken by her stomach rumbling, and she remembers that Quill had said something about dinner. And there’s another surreal thing: the idea of eating just because she is hungry. Being able to eat what she wants, when she wants is something she has never experienced, aside from the occasional act of rebellion where she’d sneak a piece of fresh fruit while on an assignment. Even that felt like a huge indulgence. 

But now she can eat whatever she pleases. Apparently after joining this team--after the other version of herself joined this team--she did, even though she still had the threat of Thanos looming over her. At least, Nebula had said so, while telling her that she didn’t need to eat only rations anymore. And Quill had seemed eager to give her “real” food. 

She takes a deep breath and slips out of the room, trying to remind herself that she doesn’t need to be on guard, that Nebula has promised nobody will try to harm her here. There was a time -- like, a few days ago, if she thinks about it that way -- that Nebula telling her something would have been even more of a reason to be wary, to be on her guard for a trap. But she believes that this Nebula is different. Trustworthy. Or at least she _wants_ to believe that.

It still doesn’t stop her from jumping and nearly pulling her sword at the sudden sound of movement. An instant later she spots Quill, standing at the other end of the table in the common area, doing something with a couple of plates...and dancing. The movements are fairly small, just a bob of his head and a...gyration…of his hips. But she still finds herself captivated watching him. He has his headphones on and he’s clearly unaware of her presence, a certain relaxed freeness to his entire energy that’s so different from what she’s seen of him until now. 

It’s been uncomfortably clear that he was suffering, that the others have been worried about him. It had made her wonder about his mental stability, not to mention his frail Terran health. But right now he looks almost...happy. Or at least like the sort of person who could _be_ happy in the way Nebula’s described.

It takes him a while to notice she’s there, and she doesn’t go out of her way to make her presence known. She finds herself not _wanting_ him to notice, because that means he will stop. 

She feels a bit guilty about that when he finally does turn around and jumps because he’s so startled. She has to wonder how he’s survived so long if his environmental awareness is so poor. How could it have taken him so long to realize she was here?

“Gamora, hey!” he says, sliding his headphones off to rest around his neck. He’s gripping the edge of the table with one hand, a grip that tightens as he takes her in, his eyes widened slightly as he sees her shirt. His gaze could easily make her uncomfortable, as men’s gazes so often have, but it doesn’t; his expression is soft, and there’s something about it that’s almost...flattering. Though she quickly shoves that thought away. 

He clears his throat, looks away. “I like the shirt. Looks good on you.” Then before she can respond, not that she’s sure she was even going to, he picks up the plates to show her their contents. “I made dinner.” 

There are only two plates, as they’re the only two people on the ship. The others have all gone out to a bar, but she and Quill had both expressed zero interest in such an activity. She might think Quill had only stayed behind because she had, but he’d decided before she did. 

She takes a few steps closer, and as she does, he presses something on his little machine that stops the music she’s been able to hear coming tinnily through his headphones. For a moment her gaze follows his hand, from the place where the thing is strapped to his hip up to his head, where he runs it through his hair. He does that a lot, she’s noticed, even in the brief few days she’s known him. He does it when he’s anxious, she thinks, based on how his heart rate always seems to increase just before.

“What?” he asks, and she realizes that he’s caught her staring at him.

Gamora clears her throat, quickly snapping her gaze back down to the table. “I was just -- wondering what’s for dinner.”

“Ah, right!” he says, sounding pleased by the question, and only a bit forced. He gestures to the plates, and a bowl closer to the middle of the table. “Well, here we have classic Xandarian deli sandwiches. They remind me of these ones on Earth that were called ‘club sandwiches.’”

She furrows her brow. She’s seen sandwiches like this before, she’s pretty certain. But he’s made them sound special somehow. “Club? What sort of club?”

“Um, the bacon-y kind?” Quill says with a shrug. “It’s not a real club. It’s just a name. Sometimes Terran names don’t make sense.” 

“Okay,” she says, not wanting to insult his home planet, despite how much it irritates her when names don’t make sense. If it’s not a real club, why name it that? 

“Anyway,” he continues, “the rest of the galaxy doesn’t really have anything as good as Terran bacon, but this is the closest you can get around here. And then this is befhamm meat, tastes like turkey on Earth. And then the lettuce and tomato because I’m totally healthy. And mayo.” 

It smells very good, and Gamora has to will her stomach not to growl again. Her eyes slide to the bowl and Quill seems to notice.

“Oh, this is ippufruit!” he says. He’s watching her, she notices, awaiting her reaction to this. She’s not sure what he’s expecting. It’s a Xandarian fruit she recognizes but has never had before. 

She just nods and says, “Thank you,” not wanting to show her eagerness to try it all. 

“I’m not much of a cook,” Quill says, taking a bite out of one of the sandwiches before putting it back on the plate. He continues speaking with his mouth full. “But it’s hard to mess up cutting up fruit and putting a sandwich together.” 

“I'm sure it's fine,” says Gamora. She starts to reach for one of the plates, then hesitates. He hasn't clearly offered it to her yet and for all she knows, he had intended both of them for himself. Also, this food was acquired and prepared entirely out of her sight. Apparently it's only taken a couple of days for that instinct to quiet down. At this rate, these people are going to have her lulled into a sense of total complacency by the end of the week. 

“You want me to taste test it?” asks Quill, apparently having noticed her indecision. He did that before too, with the soup, and it was equal parts a relief and infuriating. 

She considers. He undeniably has the upper hand here. If he wanted to harm her, he could do it in any number of ways and she would have no warning whatsoever. So far he hasn't, and this Nebula hasn't, but she's seen patience in manipulation. Thanos was a master of that. 

Beyond that, if this Nebula, on whom she's gambled her entire reality, turns out to be her enemy? Then what? Then she might as well just let them kill her. 

“No,” she says decisively. “That won't be necessary.”

With that, she takes the sandwich he didn’t bite from and sits down at one end of the table. Quill smiles a little and takes a seat closer to her than he had before, on the side of the table rather than the opposite end of it. Something about that makes her feel like she made the right choice. 

And that’s before she even tries the food. 

When she does, when she takes her first small, tentative bite of the sandwich, it’s an effort to not make an audible noise of pleasure at the flavor. The soup she’d eaten yesterday had been good, but this is _so good_. It’s easily the most flavorful thing she’s ever eaten, at least in her memory, and apparently Quill thinks these aren’t even the best ingredients there are. She can’t imagine what Terran bacon tastes like, if this subpar bacon isn’t as good. 

“Do you like it?” Quill asks, making her realize she’s still only taken the one bite, too amazed to do more than stare at her sandwich after that. 

“Yes,” she says, as calmly as possible, before taking another, much larger bite. She can hardly believe she’s eating something this good. If other foods taste as good as this, she thinks she can understand why her other self tried so much of it, even with Thanos looming. 

He grins, takes a big bite, then proceeds to talk with his mouth full again. “I had an inkling.”

Gamora shakes her head, swallowing her third bite before she decides to speak. “Oh, did you now?”

“Yes,” says Quill. “Choosing yummy food is a Star-Lord specialty. One of many.”

He's talking about himself in the third person, she realizes, which ought to be obnoxious. From any other person, under any other circumstances, it _would_ be obnoxious. But there's something infectious about his energy, like a parasite that somehow seems to get under her skin and make her feel...well, _feel things_ , another luxury she's mostly denied herself. Plus, this is the first time she's seen him not looking like he's on the verge or some sort of total emotional breakdown. He looks...sort of pleasant when he's smiling. 

“Try the ippufruit,” says Quill, catching her staring again. “You'll love it.” There's something smug in his tone that catches at her defensive instincts, makes her a bit suspicious again. 

“How do you know?”

He shrugs, unperturbed. “Because you -- well other -- no, _past-future_ you did.” He doesn't give her a chance to respond to that at all, another thought apparently occurring to him. “Hey. How do _you_ want me to refer to, you know, you and...It's gonna be weird no matter what, so I at least wanna let you choose the weird.”

She blinks when she parses his meaning from the jumbled question, realizing what he’s asking. Though really, it’s more the fact that she’s not used to that type of consideration, to someone caring what she would chose, than the way he worded the question. It is even stranger when she thinks about the fact that he is used to a Gamora who _is_ used to that type of consideration; at least she would presume so after four years. 

It _is_ very weird. Uncomfortable. Distressing. But no matter what Nova Prime says, it is difficult not to distinguish herself currently from that version of herself. 

“However you want,” she says. Then she thinks of Rocket referring to her as ‘the weird Gamora’ or ‘not our Gamora.’ She gathers that Groot, though she can’t understand him, has said something along the same lines. Even Quill has referred to the version of her that he knew as ‘the real Gamora.’ “Other, perhaps. Past-future is fine, though it seems long. But neither past nor future really seem to work, do they?”

“No,” he says on a sigh. He rips off a piece of the crust of his bread and passes it between two fingers as he slowly chews. He likes to fiddle with things, she’s noticed. “Right, well, if you change your mind…let me know.” 

“Okay,” she says, watching him curiously. His energy has become more subdued. This topic is obviously distressing for him as well. 

She casts around for a way to make it better, immediately wants to see him smile again, though she tells herself that’s ridiculous. _She_ is the one who is out of time, who has given up her whole world….even if that world was a nightmare. She ought to resent him for the fact that he clearly misses the person she isn’t, wishes that she were. And yet somehow it only makes her curious about who that person was, who she...no, not could be. She could never be, and yet--

Gamora quashes that line of thinking, instead decides to finally take a piece of the ippufruit. Quill has cut them into halves, exposing fruit that looks pale and tender against the darker, tougher rind. She picks it up carefully and smells it first, the scent equal parts sharp and sweet.

“Go ahead, it won’t bite you,” says Quill, who’s watching her now. She’d be annoyed by that, except that he looks pleased again, and somehow she finds herself liking the fact that she can elicit that reaction from him. “I skipped the toothwort.” He shudders theatrically. “I dunno how anyone can eat that stuff.”

“It’s considered a delicacy in the more rural parts of Xandar,” she tells him. “It’s one of the only fruits that grows naturally there.” 

He looks surprised, moreso than the simple fact would seem to warrant. “I didn’t know that.” 

“I know a lot about Xandar,” she says. 

“That I did know,” he says. He’s playing with that piece of bread crust again. “I guess toothwort just never came up with...uh, before.” 

She doesn’t know what to say to that. Among the multitude of other strange things about this, it’s odd to have him, and the others, know so much about her that she’s never told them--or that she doesn’t remember telling them, since the other version of herself obviously did. It’s especially strange because she knows so little about _them_. 

Since she doesn’t know what to say, she finally takes a bite of the fruit. This time, she’s unable to contain a small noise as the fruit bursts and the juices explode in her mouth. It tastes even better than it smells, sweeter and sharper and delicious. She immediately takes another bite. 

“Good, huh?” Quill asks knowingly. 

“It is all right,” she says, aware that he will see through that, but a bit irritated that he thinks he knows her so well. 

“You know what I’ve learned about you?” he asks, still smiling a bit.

She finishes the first ippufruit half before she deigns to respond to that. “Lots of things, apparently. Except I think you mean other -- other Gamora.” It feels weird saying her own name in this context, but less weird than saying ‘ _other me_.’

“Well yeah,” he says easily. “I did learn lots of things about her, because I had a long time to. But this is something I’ve learned about _you_ you too.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Oh? What is that?”

“You’re plenty vocal about things you disagree with or don’t like,” says Quill, though it’s clear from his tone that it’s just an observation, nothing accusing or challenging about it. “But when you really _like_ something, you try to pretend that you don’t care about it. Because you’re used to having that used against you.”

She bristles a bit at that last, because he’s completely right and also because she can’t help but wonder whether her other self told him that. She feels oddly betrayed by that thought, like someone has spilled one of her secrets. “Because you know that Thanos used to do that to me?”

“Yeah,” he allows, reaching out and scooting the bowl of ippufruit until it’s sitting fully in front of her. “But also ‘cause people used to do it to me too.”

“Oh,” she says softly. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised. “The Ravagers?”

“Mostly them, yeah,” he says. “They always used to threaten the few things I really cared about.”

“Like what?” she asks, finally unable to resist the ippufruit anymore. Why bother to try to hide that she likes them when he clearly already knows? 

“Like…” He taps the device on his belt. “I used to have a different music player than this one. It was the one my mom gave me, that I had with me when I was abducted.”

His voice softens when he talks about his mother. His love for her is plain to see. “Did one of the Ravagers take it?” she asks. She has the odd thought that she would hunt that person down and take it back for him if that is the case. 

He shakes his head, though. “Couple of ‘em threatened to, but I protected it. Until…” His throat bobs as he visibly swallows, and he seems to re-think what he was about to say. He looks away from her. “Nevermind.” He grabs a piece of fruit and takes a small bite. 

“Okay,” she says, not wanting to push him. She’s once again faced with not knowing what to say, or if she should say anything, so she takes another piece of fruit as well. 

They eat the rest in silence. She’s not exactly used to small talk or friendly conversation while eating, but this silence is tense and awkward. Though she loves the ippufruit, it’s a relief when it’s gone and the meal is over, though she’s faced with the embarrassing realization that she ate almost all of it by herself. 

Being finished with the meal also means that she's now without obvious direction again. A large part of her wants to go back to the quarters she's been occupying and lock herself inside. But she's already beginning to go a bit stir crazy. They won't be leaving on their next job until the morning, and she has far too much energy to fall asleep right now. Besides, she doesn't even want to contemplate what her dreams would be like if she did manage to drift off somehow. 

“Thank you for the meal,” she says finally, when it feels painfully clear that she needs to break the silence somehow. 

Quill nods. “Glad you liked it. Tastier than an IV, right?”

She suppresses the urge to roll her eyes. “Given that an IV cannot be tasted, anything would be.”

“True,” he agrees easily. Then he gets that sly look again. “Well, probably not toothwort. Delicacy or not.” He shudders dramatically. 

Gamora shakes her head, wondering what he's going to do for the rest of the evening if not drinking with the others. He doesn't let her wonder for too long, fortunately. 

“Hey, you want a tour of the ship?”

She shrugs. “I believe I am already familiar with the layout. It isn't exactly large.”

“Yeah, but there’s still details you don’t know,” he says. He leans forward and whispers, “You haven’t even seen the workout area.”

She doesn’t know why he’s whispering when there’s no one else on the ship, but she’s too distracted by that information to question it. “You have room for a workout space on this ship?” 

“See?” he says with a smile. “This is why you need a tour! C’mon.” 

With that, he stands up, and she follows his lead. She suspects he wants to give her a tour mostly because he feels the need to be doing something, but so does she. 

“It’s past the other bunks,” he explains, leading her in that direction. This is an area she hasn’t gone very far into, having had no reason to. The bunks are quite close together. Given what she’s observed of their dynamics so far, she’s surprised they’ve lasted this long in a confined space without killing each other. 

Seeing them also renews her gratitude that Quill had given her their...his and the other Gamora’s...bunk. She feels bad taking it, doesn’t feel she deserves it, but he seemed to genuinely not want to sleep in it. Besides, she’s going to leave once they’ve completed a couple jobs. He can have it back then if he wants it. 

“Here it is,” Quill says, gesturing grandly to the small area they’ve just come to, sectioned off by a half-wall. “The cargo bay slash gym. It’s not much. Not nearly as big as the one we’ve got on our other ship.”

“You have another ship?” she asks, surprised. Her tone is probably somewhat rude, now that she thinks about it, because it's full of incredulity. It's not that it's such a farfetched idea that they could have more than one ship, particularly if they do paying jobs like today's frequently. It just...goes against the mental picture she's been forming. And it does explain how they've managed not to kill one another. 

“Two others, actually,” says Quill. If he's offended, he doesn't show it, apparently pleased as ever to tell her about something. “The Quadrant is the one with the bigger gym. Well, bigger everything, really. We kinda...inherited it from the Ravagers, so it's made for a way bigger crew than we have. But we like it. We live on it when we're not on jobs.”

She nods. She's all too familiar with the concept of living on a ship permanently. In fact, that brings back somewhat unpleasant images of Thanos and her former life that she shoves to the back of her mind again. “And...your other ship?”

“The Milano,” he says with a smile that’s fond and also a little sad. “She was my first ship.” 

Gamora has never understood this propensity to call ships _she_ , but this is clearly something important to Quill, so she doesn’t say that. “Is she also named after a singer?”

He shakes his head. “An actress. My first crush as a kid. Actually, the Milano was the ship I had when we first met. Well, you know…” 

“I know,” she says, before he can finish that thought. 

“It’s even smaller than this one,” he tells her, and she’s thankful he doesn’t stick with the pronoun all the time. 

“Did you get a larger one because you got a crew?” she asks. 

“No, not at first,” he says. The cargo bay/gym area has a large port window at the back, and Quill is looking out it, even though there’s not much to see but the other ships that are docked here. She tries to do this as well, though she keeps finding her gaze drawn back to him, wanting to watch him as he speaks. 

“Not at first?” she prompts when he’s been quiet for a moment. 

“Right,” he says, shaking his head as if to wake himself. “Uh, we spent the first couple months on the Milano. It was tight, but we made it work. Until...Well, until we got the Quadrant. And the Benatar came with it. And that’s when Mantis joined us, so now we don’t use it as much anymore.” 

“If it is smaller than this, I can only imagine how close the quarters would be,” says Gamora, mainly because she feels the need to say something again. There’s something going on with him and his distractedness, but she can’t figure out what it is. Something to do with a memory, no doubt. One that will never be hers.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, we don’t actually use it as a whole crew, like, ever. Since we got the Benatar, the Milano kinda became our ship when we wanted to get away, just me and--” He breaks off, but the way he’s avoiding quite meeting her eyes tells her everything that she needs to know; it was the private space he had with her counterpart.

Gamora nods, deciding immediately that she does not ever want to see that ship, especially not with him. It feels like it would be...a violation, somehow. Further evidence of something she can never have. Not that it matters, since she doesn’t care about that sort of thing. Perhaps that’s why she is the one who is alive.

“Is there anywhere else on the ship that I haven’t seen?” she asks, mostly because she wants him to stop looking so sad. It makes her feel guilty, like she’s harming him with her mere presence.

“No,” he says. “Well, no places anyway. There’s plenty of features and stuff. I could show you some stuff in the cockpit?”

“Sure,” she says. That’s practical; she knows how to fly a standard ship and plenty about how they work as a whole, but every ship varies, and it’s good to know the particulars. Not that she’s going to be on this one for long. 

Quill nods, seemingly to himself, then leads her back the way they came, through the bunks. “Obviously, uh, feel free to use the gym whenever you want. Or anything else on the ship.”

“Okay,” she says, but she has no plans to allow herself to get that comfortable here. 

They’re passing the table area again when he suddenly stops, looking at it for a reason she can’t discern. Nothing seems different than when they left it, or out of place. Their dishes from dinner are still there, but she has a feeling that doesn’t particularly bother him. 

“What?” she prompts. 

“You know,” he says slowly, “there’s something way cooler than the cockpit I could show you if you want.”

“What?” she says again, suspicious and a bit impatient. 

“Well, Groot’s not the only one of us who likes video games,” he says instead of answering. “We all play them sometimes.” Then he presses something on the table that brings up a large holo screen in front of it. A few swipes of the screen, and then it’s filled with a video showing animated spaceships racing each other along a very impractical route, going through hoops and hitting each other and occasionally blowing up. 

It looks a bit like the holo simulations Thanos had sometimes used to train her and her siblings, only those had usually involved battling an opponent in combat. And they’d required holo simulation suits so that the sensory input would be real, so that she could feel the exertion, the pain that came with any error. Still, this setup makes her tense, makes her instinctively distrustful.

“What is it?” she asks, taking half a step closer but keeping her arms crossed over her chest.

“What?” Quill echoes, giving her a bit of a confused look. Then he shakes himself again. “It’s a game. Like, a pretend race.”

“I can see that,” says Gamora, a bit defensively. In truth she still feels a bit lost, and she doesn’t like it at all. “But what is its purpose? For example, is it a training simulation? Do you race your ships for units?”

“Oh!” he exclaims, apparently catching on now. “No, no, it’s just a thing we do for fun. Though racing for units would be super cool. Very Han Solo of me.”

“Who?” she asks, frustration spilling into her tone. “Is that a Ravager?”

“Oh, right,” Quill says, getting that deflated look again. “Uh, he’s a character from a movie called Star Wars. I’ll tell you the story some other time, huh?” 

“All right,” she says stiffly. That lost feeling has only intensified, now coupled with a frustratingly insecure feeling because that is clearly a reference he expected her to know, because the _other_ her knew. Another way she is causing pain merely by existing. 

“Sometimes we bet small things,” he says, a sudden cheeriness in his voice that is painfully forced. “Like loser has to do the dishes, or winner gets the last good beer in the fridge. But mostly it’s just for bragging rights. To see who’s the best.”

“That seems childish,” Gamora says. That makes even Quill’s forced smile fade, so despite herself she asks, “How do you play?”

“Like this!” he says. He pulls two chairs out a little ways from the table, then presses something on the screen that makes some holo controls pop up in front of each chair, like the kind that would be used to pilot a real ship. “We each pick a ship, and then we race them!” He still looks falsey cheery, but genuinely hopeful when he asks, “Wanna go a round?” 

She hesitates anyway, even though she knows it would probably make him happy if she did. She isn’t sure that she wants to give him false hope, and she’s not very good at pretending anyway. He has to know that, doesn’t he? If she decides to play the game and she really doesn’t like it, surely he’ll be able to tell. And if he notices, then he’ll probably be even sadder and angrier, resent her even more for not being the woman he loved. He might even kick her off of his ship like he’d tried to do when she’d initially wanted to bargain for supplies. Nebula isn’t here to protect her now, and if she loses this opportunity, these people, then--

Quill pats the seat next to him. “C’mon. Give it a try. I bet you’ll totally kick my ass at it.” He gives her his most cajoling look, then appears to think of another tactic when she still hasn’t responded. “If you don’t play, though, then I’ll be the winner by default. You gonna let me get away with that?”

And just like that, she most certainly is _not_. She’s well aware that her competitive streak was cultivated by Thanos, was one of the things that made her the most successful of her siblings. But knowing that does not make her any more willing to forfeit a potential competition now. “Hell no.”

Quill grins as she takes her seat next to him. “You’re gonna love it, I promise. First thing’s first: choosing your ship!”

He grabs one of his handles and presses something on it or moves it in a subtle way that she doesn’t fully register, and then the screen changes. Now instead of what was presumably the preview or loading screen, the screen is split in two. The side of the screen in front of Quill says _Welcome Star-Lord_ and the side in front of her says _Welcome Player Two_. 

“Touch your thruster,” he says, gesturing to his own hand where he’s holding the control. 

She does so warily, waiting for some kind of trick. But her hand doesn’t get shocked or go right through it. Instead, it feels like the holo projections from her training sims always did; like it’s just on the edge of being real. She can feel it and touch it and move it just like they were real, but her fingers sometimes appear to be just above or just underneath the holo, like part of her is going through it. 

When she looks up again, her side of the screen now reads _Welcome Gamora_. 

“It reads biometrics,” Quill says quietly, staring at the screen; probably her name, more accurately. After a few seconds, he clears his throat, shakes himself out of it, and does something else with his control that changes the screens. There’s a picture of a basic spacecraft on each side of the screen, as well as long menus full of options, and a bar graph of various attributes. “You move the thruster to go up and down the menu.” 

She does that experimentally. The first time she hits it too hard, and the menu scrolls uncontrollably through a bunch of ships, much too fast to see. Gamora sighs, forces herself not to get angry or frustrated with it. This is a game, she reminds herself. So far it hasn’t been a trap. 

So far, Quill hasn’t attempted _any_ sort of traps or deception as far as she can tell. Actually, if she allows herself to be honest, he seems as genuine as Nebula promised. As...good.

“Try with just a couple fingers,” he suggests, demonstrating again.

She does that, finding it possible to navigate now. That doesn’t mean she knows what she’s looking for, though, and she turns back to him almost at once. “All right. So...what gives a ship strategic value in this game?”

Quill raises an eyebrow, his expression completely serious. “Oh, you want me to tell you how to beat me?” Then he grins before she can even respond. “Okay, well, small and aerodynamic is good for the racing courses, because sometimes there’s tight spots to get through. But if you wanna ram people with your ship, it’s good to be sturdy too.”

“So you want a balance,” Gamora says, already going through the menu, analyzing the features of each ship. 

“Yeah,” Quill says, scrolling rapidly through his menu. “And also a cool-ass ship. You can customize the colors and other parts of the appearance, too. This is the one I always fly with.” 

He gestures to his side of the screen, where there’s now the image of a ship that looks similar to a smaller version of the Benatar with an orange and blue exterior. 

“Does the appearance also hold a strategic value?” she asks curiously. She doesn’t see why it would, but she has never played a game like this before. 

“Only in that it makes it strategically more awesome,” Quill says. He does something with his controls that makes the model ship spin. 

“So no?” Gamora concludes. 

“No,” he admits. 

She goes through her options with great concentration, and chooses the one that has the best balance of the three features he spoke of: speed, strength, and a small size. When prompted to customize its appearance, she almost elects to make it all black. But then she thinks of her hair, and her new clothes, and her new freedom, and adds a stripe of pink to the wings. 

“It’s perfect,” Quill says, sounding genuine. She wonders how similar it is to the ship the other Gamora used to choose but doesn’t ask. 

“Perfect to beat you with,” says Gamora, mainly to hide how happy that compliment has made her. It’s been a long time since anyone has done that without an ulterior motive. Thanos complimented her, to be sure, but it was always as part of a manipulation, to make her more into his vision. Or to make Nebula as jealous as possible.

“Oh, is it now?” asks Quill, his tone light, pleased though she’s clearly goading him. 

“Yes,” she says confidently. “I am going to best you in the racing exercise.”

He surprises her by laughing, which makes her bristle despite the fact that it’s undeniably...affectionate. Maybe that’s _why_ she bristles. As nice as he’s being, having that sort of emotion directed at her feels...wrong. Like he must be making a mistake. Seeing her as the person she is not.

“What?” she asks, frowning. If he tells her that she’s said something the _other_ her would have...well, she isn’t sure what she’s going to do. Probably not walk off, much as her instincts tell her that she ought to.

He just shakes his head, though. “If you’re gonna hang with my crew, you gotta work on your trash talk.”

“My what?” she asks, wondering if there was a translator issue. 

“You know, like playfully insulting your opponent,” he explains. “Like...You couldn’t outrace a four-door planetside craft.”

“Which is insulting because of how easy it would be to do that?” Gamora asks. 

“Exactly!” Quill says. 

“But why is it called waste talk?” she asks, perplexed. 

“Trash talk,” he corrects, which still sounds the same to her ear. “And uh...because sometimes it involves trashy language.” 

She considers that, then decides she will allow it. It makes more sense than some other terms she’s heard. “And what is the purpose of it?”

“To--up the tension of the game!” he says. “And because it’s funny.”

“Is it an essential part of the game?” she insists. 

“Well, no,” Quill admits. “It’ll vary by who’s playing.” 

“I think I would prefer to simply concentrate,” she says. She has never had to insult someone in a way that was meant to bring amusement, and the idea of having to do so while also playing an unfamiliar game is daunting. 

Quill looks a little deflated, but he says quickly, “You got it! No trash talk for this game.”

“Thank you,” she says stiffly. “What is next?”

“Selecting the course,” he says, using his controls to flip through another menu. “We’ll start with a basic one so you can get the hang of it.”

She bristles at the implication. “There will be no need for that.” 

“Not because I have any doubts in your ability to kick my ass,” says Quill, his tone still easy and calm, actually warm even as they discuss competing against one another. That’s so unfamiliar to her that it’s almost embarrassing. She wonders whether her other self reacted the same way, or if _she_ understood all of his quirks and references. Whether _she_ both fell for and seduced him instantaneously, since she was clearly so superior in every way.

“Then why?” asks Gamora, still irritated, though she’s dimly aware of how irrational it is to be jealous of some other version of her own self, over a man she has no investment in. 

“‘Cause,” says Quill. “There are some tricks to it. Obstacles and stuff. I just wanna be fair to you if we’re gonna compete.”

“I am not an idiot,” she insists, his sincere generosity only setting her further on the defensive. It’s even more of a wonder than she thought that he’s survived thus far, if this is how he behaves toward everyone he meets. He’s practically asking to be taken advantage of. “Nor am I incompetent. If we are going to compete, then we should compete.”

He sighs. “Fine. You choose the course.”

She goes through the options and selects the one with the highest difficulty rating, called _Color Course_. Quill raises his eyebrows at her choice, but she ignores him.

“Now, remember the obstacles,” he tells her. “There are some bad things to avoid and some good things to collect, and they look pretty similar.” 

“I am more than capable of navigating an obstacle course,” she tells him. 

“All right,” Quill says with a shrug, annoyingly smug. Gamora concentrates on the screen, which is still split and shows each of their ships at the starting line, with a view of some of the course in front of them. They are apparently going to be piloting through a very long rainbow in space. She is about to comment on the absurdity of this, but then the countdown starts on both sides of the screen: _3, 2, 1, Go!_

Quill immediately starts out in front of her, as he seems to know the exact second to push forward on the thruster. She tries not to let that frustrate her and instead focuses on the path in front of her. There’s some loud, techno-sounding music playing and occasionally the rainbow flashes quite distractingly, a sensory overload that surprises her. 

Nonetheless, after a few moments the superiority of her more practical ship choice allows her to pull ahead of Quill. She grins, and she’s triumphant for all of three seconds before - _Boom!_ \-- she runs into some kind of floating orb in the middle of the course that blows her ship to pieces. 

She sits there, stunned, as the words _You lost!_ flash across her side of the screen. 

Quill makes a sympathetic noise. “Ah, you hit the instant kill. I told ya to watch out for those obstacles.” 

Gamora takes a breath and glares at the screen. Losing is not something she enjoys, or is really accustomed to. 

“Hey, relax,” Quill says, still frustratingly calm and kind. “You’re doing great.”

“I lost,” she says, turning her glare to him. “How is that doing great?”

“Cause you tried something new,” he says bracingly. “And now you know what to watch out for, so you’ll do better next time.”

She takes another breath, deeper this time, and stares the screen down. “I would like to try again.”

“As many times as you want,” Quill says, sounding pleased. With another move of his thruster, the course resets, and they start over again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys so uh keep in mind that grief is complicated and healing from trauma isn't a smooth path 
> 
> *innocent smiles*

All Peter can think is how much he’s _missed_ this. 

He’s curled up in bed -- not a bunk barely big enough for himself, but the big bed he shares with Gamora on the Quadrant, the one they’d shopped for together, back when it had become clear that they were going to spend every night in the same room. The one that had made her eyes widen, that she’d hardly been able to believe she might deserve, might be able to own. 

She’s got no such reservations now, though. Hasn’t in a long time.

Now she’s half asleep, her head on his chest, her hand splayed out over his heart. She likes to do that, he knows, likes to _feel_ his heartbeat as she drifts off. 

Peter curls his fingers into her hair, toys with a curl for a moment before slipping his hand down to the nape of her neck, gently massaging there. She makes a soft, contented sound at that, shifting against him to throw a leg possessively across his. There’s nothing suggestive about it, just...warm. Safe. 

All of the things he’s been missing, thought he’d lost forever, only he hasn’t because they’re right here. She’s _right here._

“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” she echoes quietly. But there’s a look on her face, an agonizingly familiar one that makes his heart pound. “More than anything.”

Then he feels the pressure against his legs suddenly lighten, and when he looks down her leg is dissolving into bubbles. 

“No,” he breathes, ice cold dread pouring over him, completely drowning the wonderful moment. “Mora, no!” She looks at him, her face sad but accepting, and still full of love. The bubbles travel farther up, her entire leg disappearing, then they take her hips. He grabs frantically for them, as if he’ll be able to put her back together if he can only catch the bubbles, but his fingers go right through them. “Please, Gamora, please don’t go!” 

“You’ve replaced me anyway,” she says sadly. 

“What?” he gasps. Her waist is gone now too. “No, no I haven’t! You mean--but she’s you! You’re her! You’re the same person! Aren’t you?”

She says nothing, just continues to watch him as he watches her disappear, as helpless as ever. Her face is the last thing to go, the bubbles floating away up into the air that’s suddenly on fire around him. 

He wakes up in a tiny bunk with tears streaming down his face, arms wrapped around himself. Alone. 

It takes him only half a second more to realize that he’s not _really_ alone, not in private. The others are here, in the bunks around him, and they’ll absolutely wake up and give him hell if he makes too much noise, if he loses it like he really, really wants to. But he can’t, because he _isn’t_ alone.

It’s just that Gamora isn’t here -- _his_ Gamora isn’t here. And she never will be again, because she’s dead, because she’s at the bottom of a fucking _cliff_ on Vormir, alone in the cold, which she _hates_. He wishes he’d never heard that Barton guy’s description of the place, of the sacrifice. He doesn’t even want to _think_ about her body after five years, about how it must be fucking entombed in the ice. So of course the next thing his mind does is give him a vivid Technicolor image image of that and --

And he’s going to vomit, he thinks. He’s drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time, his entire body prickling with pins and needles. The room is spinning around him, his head swimming far too much to even try to get up or get to the bathroom. He swallows convulsively for a few seconds before his entire body rebels, heaves -- and all that comes out is a strangled sob.

He takes the pillow and pulls it over his head to muffle the sounds. He at least had the presence of mind last night to put up the privacy shield around the bunk, but the others will still be able to hear him if he sobs like a child. 

His fingers grip the pillow like a lifeline, like if he clings to it hard enough this horrible reality will go away. Or maybe if he presses it to his face hard enough he can just disappear, turn back to ash or bubbles. He used to tell Gamora when she woke up before him that he got up too because why would he want to be in a bed that didn’t have her in it? He doesn’t really want to be in a universe that doesn’t have her in it, either. 

God, yesterday he’d almost convinced himself that he _is_ still in a universe with her in it; that maybe he could have his love back, his _life_ back, that this is his Gamora after all, when he’d been playing that game with her -- _other_ her, he reminds himself sharply. Other Gamora. The word _other_ is bitter and sharp even in his head. She’s not the same, not his, how could he ever think that? Fuck Nova Prime and Nebula and anyone else who says she is. Of all the people to be right, it had to be Rocket. 

Maybe this is what he deserves, he thinks, as the horrible sadness drifts toward anger again. That feels better and he doesn’t even try to stop it. This is his punishment, the universe setting itself right. He never deserved to have Gamora in his life, _especially_ didn’t deserve to be loved by her. 

He damn well proved _that_ , with how spectacularly he managed to fail her. First, in protecting her from Thanos. And _god_ , how many times had he comforted her after a nightmare? How many nights (and mornings and other times) had he spent listening to her fears? How god damn many times had he given her meaningless reassurances that he’d somehow deluded himself into believing? 

He’d failed, flown her to Knowhere and straight into mortal danger _himself_. Then he’d failed to follow through on his promise, to help her at the very least die on her own terms, die a hero rather than a pawn. Failed to give her any sort of funeral or memorial or...or anything.

And now...now here he is, allowing himself to entertain the thought that _anyone_ else could _ever_ be her. Could ever be the same. Here he is making dinner for and playing games with an imposter when Gamora is _dead_.

This line of thinking is doing him no good but he’s powerless to stop it; he doesn’t deserve to stop it. He deserves this feeling of horror, the pain, the sickened feeling in his stomach. Why the hell should he try to make himself feel _better_? 

He doesn’t know how long he lies there, drowning in his own sorrow. At some point, he hears the others get up and start moving around. He feels the ship take off, but he doesn’t care who’s moving it or where they’re going. He’s just going to stay right here forever. Maybe if he does, the rest of the universe will cease to exist. Or he will. 

Eventually, though, the call of the bathroom is too powerful to ignore and he forces himself to get up. It’s a struggle to shuffle across the hall, his head is absolutely pounding and he feels vaguely nauseous still, both pains he deserves. 

Once he’s taken care of business, he stands in front of the sink and contemplates splashing water on his face to get rid of the dried up tears, but decides to leave them. Another punishment, another reminder. Who cares if the others see him looking like a wreck? Why should he give a rat’s ass? 

He’s about to drag himself back to bed when he finally registers the sounds drifting to him from beyond the bunks. He hears voices; Nebula, Mantis, Drax, and the _other_ Gamora. There’s the synthetic clicking and explosion noises that accompany a video game. And laughter. 

That brings the anger flooding back, which is actually kind of a relief. It, at least, gives him some kind of energy. He's still angry at himself, sure, but at the other Gamora too. He resents her for not being the woman he loved, and for every cruel similarity that makes him remember. For the fact that she's apparently starting to like it here, judging from the voices. 

Suddenly he decides that he is not going to go out there looking like a mess after all. That would be like letting her win, somehow. Instead he’s going to pull himself the fuck together and show her that he doesn’t care, because _she_ means nothing to him. 

Foregoing the sink, Peter turns the shower on, deciding to let it stay on cold. He doesn’t want it to be comfortable, or to remind him too much of how _his_ Gamora loved warm water, particularly when she’d gotten to share it with him. He strips off his clothes and hisses through his teeth as he steps into the shower, his body erupting in goosebumps. That brings back yet another painful memory -- the first time Gamora had seen them, how she’d been fascinated by the concept. How she’d delighted in causing them later. 

Shaking himself again, Peter grabs the soap and starts scrubbing his skin so roughly that it’s almost painful.

He does this until his skin is red and raw, and the punishment of the cold water and the memories are finally too much. He steps out of the shower and towels himself down roughly, then puts on the same clothes he’s been wearing for days because he’s not about to go into… _that_ room to grab more. The room he’d shared with Gamora, that he’d now given to _this_ one. He should’ve just left it sealed forever, not let it be tainted by an imposter. 

The fresh surge of anger that accompanies that thought propels him out of the bathroom and towards the common area. The sounds of the others grate at his ears before he even sees them; they sound like they’re having fun. How can they be enjoying themselves when Gamora is _gone_?

The other one is here. And Nebula, Drax, and Mantis are treating her like she’s no different. They’re all sitting on one side of the table, a new game up on the screen. Peter knows this game. It roughly translates to _Fight to the Death_. Each of them has a character with various abilities and powers, and they all fight each other in various settings. Gamora loved this game. 

They don’t notice him right away, all far too enthralled to acknowledge his presence. Which is just typical, he thinks. They don’t listen to him, they don’t care about him, he might as well be one big joke to his supposed team. Maybe _he_ ought to just leave, except then he’d have absolutely nothing to do but be alone with all his memories.

On the screen, the battle is winding down, all four characters at the bottom of their health points. Clearly hopelessly behind, Mantis sends her character sailing off the edge of the battle platform to automatic death, giggling as it flaps its arms both dramatically and ineffectively. 

“I lose!” she exclaims, sitting forward with her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, apparently delighted to watch the others continue playing.

Nebula goes out next, clearly less pleased about it than Mantis. She slumps back in her seat, arms crossed, practically pouting. She keeps watching too, though, still too invested to just walk away.

That leaves Drax and Gamora -- _other_ he tries to tell himself, then feels a fresh surge of anger because that was the label she chose when he’d charitably given her the opportunity. 

“What is the point of my character flying up into the air only to come crashing back down?” _This_ Gamora asks, apparently frustrated with her chosen characters abilities. Peter glares at the back of her head when he realizes she’s chosen his Gamora’s favorite character. 

“That is her attack,” Nebula says. 

“She should at least come down with her sword out,” Gamora says, her fingers working rapidly over the buttons. “I could have defeated all of these characters by myself by now.”

_His_ Gamora would have won by now no matter what character she was playing with, Peter thinks bitterly. This Gamora does manage to win anyway, though, making Drax groan loudly in disappointment. 

Gamora doesn’t gloat or say anything; she just looks quietly satisfied. That is different from his Gamora. She knew how to trash talk because he’d taught her. This Gamora clearly doesn’t feel comfortable enough with them to do it. He ignores the little voice in the back of his mind that tries to say _yet_. 

“I want a rematch!” Drax demands. 

“Gladly,” Gamora says, calm and confident and infuriating. 

“Yes,” Nebula agrees, taking hold of her holo-controller again. “I will defeat you all this time.”

“Do you want to play too, Peter?” Mantis asks with a cheery smile. She doesn’t seem surprised that he’s there, but the others do, turning around all at once to finally acknowledge him. 

“Quill!” Drax exclaims, grinning. “You made yourself invisible!”

Peter bristles, remembering that particular conversation, and how they’d had it just after his Gamora had asked him to -- had made him promise that he’d -- He clamps down on those thoughts again, reaching for the anger. “No, I didn’t, because that’s not a thing. You were just being distracted and oblivious like always.”

“I was!” Drax agrees, unperturbed. “I thought you were still in bed crying.”

“Drax!” Peter snaps, having absolutely no problem staying angry now. Leave it to Drax to say something completely embarrassing in front of the others, and to think nothing at all of it. Years together and he still has no concept of tact or modesty. “I was not -- That’s not a thing you just _say_ about people!”

“You are very sensitive, Peter,” says Mantis, her eyes huge. She isn’t goading him, though, just stating a fact. “There is no shame in being emotional.”

“ _Guys,_ ” Peter groans, glaring at both of them in turn, like he might be able to will them into shutting up. As if. 

“Get over it, Quill,” says Nebula. She doesn’t quite roll her eyes, but the intention is obvious in her tone. “We all know how dramatic you are.”

“Are you all right?” asks Gamora, before he can respond to that latest jab.

She actually sounds a little bit concerned about him, and that makes him angrier than all the others’ comments combined. He doesn’t want her pity. “I’m fine,” he snaps. 

She recoils just slightly, barely noticeably, but he finds that reaction darkly pleasing. 

Nebula looks like she wants to murder him. “Watch it, Quill.” He just glares at her some more in response. 

“So, is that a yes on the game?” Drax asks, oblivious as ever. Peter’s more than gotten used to that quirk of his, but right now it makes him want to punch him. He recognizes how badly that would end, though. 

“No,” he says instead, injecting as much venom as he can into the word. “I don’t want to play the dumb game.” 

“It is not dumb,” Mantis says, half-defensive, half-pouting. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Nebula says. “Let’s just play.” 

She, Mantis, and Drax turn back to the game, but he can still feel fake-Gamora’s eyes on him. He studiously avoids meeting her gaze until she too looks back at the screen. Then he can go back to glaring at the back of her head in peace. 

Well, not really in peace. His insides are roiling. He stands behind them, watching them play with his arms crossed. They’d probably like him to leave, so he’s not going to give them that pleasure. 

He wonders where Rocket and Groot are. Probably avoiding this gross party, practically a celebration of the imposter. He probably owes them an apology, when he thinks about it. They were the ones who saw the situation for what it was, for how weird and wrong it is, while he let himself be in denial. 

“I am going to choose an even bigger character!” says Drax, scrolling through the selection screen. “I will crush all of you with his mass!” 

He spends a few moments contemplating several gargantuan holo monsters before finally choosing one that appears to be made out of rock. It looks almost like a Kronan, but even bigger and meaner, with grossly exaggerated proportions. Probably how Drax pictures himself, thinks Peter. Then he takes a moment to feel bitter about the fact that Drax is perfectly capable of understanding the concept of a video game avatar, but somehow unable to recognize that the woman currently sitting next to him is a sham.

“I want this one!” says Mantis, selecting a stylized representation of a Druff. “She is very fluffy!” Then she hesitates and switches to an A’askavariian. “No wait! This one.”

“Wow,” Peter deadpans. “They’re practically exactly alike.”

“This one is also very cute,” says Mantis, sounding completely sincere about applying that adjective to tentacles and needle teeth. 

He rolls his eyes, his normally sibling-like affection for Mantis nowhere to be found. She’s too naive to see this Gamora for what she is. Naive like he’d been yesterday, only she’s unlikely to snap out of it. 

Nebula selects a large character, apparently going with Drax’s theory that bigger is better. Gamora-- _fake Gamora_ , he reminds himself--sticks with the same character as before. Peter bristles, holding himself so tense it’s painful. That’s exactly what his Gamora used to do. She almost always stuck with that same character, especially if she’d just won with it. He wants to shout at her that the character doesn’t belong to her, that _none_ of this belongs to her. But they’d all probably like him to make a scene like that, to be _”dramatic”_ like Nebula had called him. So he refrains, and just continues glaring at the back of their heads as they start another battle. 

“Oh, this character can spit spikes!” Mantis squeals excitedly, as she goes about her usual method of playing this game: pressing random buttons until something happens. It’s oddly effective, and he’s admired that about her in the past, but right now every single thing every one of them does is infuriating to him. 

“Mine can smash very hard!” Drax says, chasing after Gamora’s character, pummeling the ground of this course. She evades him, her character much faster and more agile than his. 

“Which makes no difference if you can’t catch me,” Gamora-the-imposter points out. 

She sends her character into a forward roll, then one of those jump up and chop back down moves. That causes some debris to fall from the top of the screen, seemingly out of nowhere. It’s completely illogical, but it makes Drax’s character trip and land facedown for a moment, shaking the entire setup. 

Mantis laughs uproariously, pointing. “You are very big and very clumsy!”

“Yes I am,” Drax agrees.

Gamora doesn’t give him a chance to get his character back up, instead sends hers running for higher ground again. It’s a strategic move, Peter knows. The kind of thing Gamora -- real Gamora -- would have done, both with her character and in actual combat. But it still makes him irrationally angry now. 

“That’s right,” he scoffs, pleased when she starts a bit, losing her concentration just long enough to glance at him over her shoulder. “Keep running. That’s your specialty, right? Running away.”

“Quill,” Nebula growls, her tone in actual danger territory. “Don’t think I cannot multitask enough to win this game and kill you simultaneously.”

Peter huffs a bitter laugh. “Try me.”

She doesn’t get a chance, though, because he’s managed to break Gamora’s concentration enough that Drax now has her character in a headlock, preparing to slam her into the ground in a move that would pretty clearly be fatal. Nebula sends her character rushing up from behind, producing a bomb from out of nowhere and using it to blow the head off Drax’s avatar at point-blank range. 

Drax and Mantis both laugh uproariously. “She killed you!” Mantis says gleefully. Drax, who was angry at losing before, now apparently could not find it funnier. Gamora is looking at Nebula with clear surprise, but Nebula is entirely focused on Peter, her eyes deadly. If he had any self-preservation at the moment, he’d be concerned for his safety. 

“If you do not find something better to do,” Nebula says, her voice low and dangerous, “than sitting there sulking like a bratty child, I am going to do the same thing to your actual body.” She gestures back to the screen. Mantis is taking advantage of everyone’s distraction to kick their asses, which he’s sure as hell not about to point out. 

Part of him wants to challenge her, to dare her to, but his grip on his emotions is getting more and more tenuous, especially now that he can feel this Gamora’s eyes on him. Infuriatingly, tears are beginning to form at the back of his eyes, and it’s all he can do to forcefully push them back.

“Fine,” he spits. Just being around them is unbearable anyway. “I’ll find something better to do than play a damn video game.” Then he marches over to the ladder and hauls himself up into the cockpit. 

Rocket and Groot are both there, as he’s pretty much figured out by process of elimination. There’s a part of him that wants to be alone right now, but the bigger part of him is glad to see them, to see anyone who he views as an ally at the moment. That feeling is strengthened by the fact that he sees Rocket is wearing his red scarf again, though Peter’s completely unaware of when he stole it back. And he’s in his own chair, too, which is probably as close as he’s ever gonna get to an olive branch or an apology. 

Groot is slumped over in his own usual seat, playing his game, of course. There was a time when he would have been eager to join the others down below, when he’d delighted in the idea that his entire family liked to play. Actually, now that he’s allowing himself to think about it, Peter remembers that Gamora had taught him how to play this particular game, back when they’d all decided he was finally old enough. He feels oddly vindicated now, knowing that Groot’s refused to join them.

Rocket glances at Peter over his shoulder. “Oh, look who decided to join us.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, dropping heavily into his chair and then glancing sidelong at Rocket. “Well, I thought it was time for some...authentic company.” He’s being cruel and he knows it, but he tells himself he doesn’t care.

Rocket snorts bitterly. “What, is your new girlfriend not all you thought she was gonna be?”

“Hey,” Peter says, feeling like a knife’s gone through his chest. Suddenly he sees the Gamora from his dream, the real one, telling him he’s replaced her. “She’s not--she isn’t my--that’s not my Gamora.”

“You sure are singin’ a different tune than yesterday,” Rocket says, surprise lacing its way through his tone along with the anger that’s still simmering there. 

“Yeah, well, I was an idiot,” Peter says, though he squirms a little bit with discomfort when he remembers how pissed he’d been at Rocket for saying the same things yesterday that he’s been thinking today. 

“Finally,” Rocket says. “We agree on something. Glad you came to your senses.” 

Peter grunts in response, conflicted. He feels the sudden urge to defend this Gamora, and to defend himself from yesterday. But he was an idiot yesterday...definitely yesterday. 

He wishes there was something up here to distract himself with, something to do. But they’re on autopilot. Rocket and Groot don’t actually need to be up here, but they’d obviously wanted to get away from those phonies downstairs too. 

“Where are we going, anyway?” Peter asks after a few minutes of silence, interrupted by the muffled sounds of the others downstairs which are only adding to his mood. 

Rocket turns to look at him again, and this look says he thinks Peter is the stupidest person he’s ever met. Maybe he is. “Are you really that big a’ idiot?” When Peter doesn’t respond, he adds, “Liri IV? The job? That _you_ asked for from the Nova Corps?”

“Oh,” Peter says. Wow, he really is an idiot for forgetting that. He’d known they were leaving for this today. It’s an even easier job than the last one, a pretty simple transport of supplies, mostly medicine and nonperishable food that they’d confiscated from the crime ring. Liri IV isn’t exactly a safe planet, but all they have to do is get some packages to a Nova Aid outpost there. “Right.” 

“You sure you’re not losin’ it?” asks Rocket, eyeing him. He's couched it in smug judgment like usual, but Peter doesn't miss the actual concern in his gaze, though it's not like he thinks Rocket would ever admit it. 

“No,” says Peter, realizes that's ambiguous, then decides that he doesn't want to clarify. It's not like he really knows anyway. Maybe he'd like a little concern from Rocket, particularly after yesterday. 

Rocket shakes his head. “I'm startin’ to think Thanos scrambled your marbles a bit. Maybe we got you back with a few screws looser than before.”

“Maybe,” Peter sighs bitterly, slumping back in his seat. He lets his fingers play along his Zune, thinks about putting on his headphones, but doesn't. 

He does let his mind wander, though, when Rocket doesn't respond any further. He thinks about what this must be like for him and Nebula, wonders for half an instant whether he seems fake to them, the same way this Gamora does to him. He's missing the past five years, after all. But at least he remembers who they all _are._

_’This is difficult for you,’_ she'd said, and _’Should I be concerned for your continued survival?’_ Those things had made him feel like an asshole, to be horrified by his own behavior toward her. It had seemed _so clear_ then that he’d needed to accept her, to support her...and so clear _now_ that she is nothing but an imposter, that any modicum of affection toward her is a betrayal of the real Gamora.

He’s starting to feel like there are two of him, as well. Only they’re both currently occupying this one body, vying for space in his head. 

Huffing out a frustrated breath, he shoves those thoughts down and finally puts his headphones on. He needs to stop thinking at all for a while or he just might end up proving Rocket correct. That would be entirely too annoying to bear.

* * *

The gym on the Benatar is indeed very small, with only a few pieces of equipment interspersed with boxes of supplies. Most of the equipment appears worn and out-of-date. But compared to the large gym and training areas she’d been forced to endure under Thanos, it’s practically a paradise. 

A paradise she’d been sorely tempted by when Quill first showed it to her. Gamora is glad she didn’t express too much interest then, given his behavior today; behavior she tells herself it’s silly to be hurt by. Perhaps his kind behavior before had been a trick of some kind. Or he really is just that emotionally unstable. 

Nebula, at least, has been consistent. So when she suggested after a few more rounds of that game that they come here together, she’d felt safe enough to say yes. Touched, even, though she’s doing her best not to show it. She reminds herself to keep her guard up, that the Nebula she knew would have used this as a trap; or it would have been set up by Thanos, another time he would pit them against each other, make them fight. 

It’s a lot more of a struggle to keep those doubts up than Gamora would have expected. 

“There’s only one punching bag strong enough for us,” Nebula says as they enter the gym. “Only one of most things, besides the weights.” 

Gamora considers that for a moment, her defensive instincts stirring again. That seems like a setup for a trap, for a competition. One of Thanos’s favorite tactics had been to provide limited resources to his children, to make them fight one another for the things they desperately needed...or required just to escape further punishment, in some cases. 

That doesn’t make any sense here, though, she tells herself. For all that he’s been erratic, been kind of an asshole toward her today, she cannot fathom Quill as the sort of leader who would pit his teammates against one another. If only because he lacks the authority to do it. 

Well, and she’s pretty sure he doesn’t have the heart for it either. That sort of thing takes a toll.

“Because...they were hers?” asks Gamora, thinking about it further. Nebula has shared some of her own struggle in joining this group, in feeling like she belonged or was capable of having a family. She knows that she didn’t do it full-time until after the others were gone. So she supposes it would make sense that she and Nebula would have had little opportunity to share this gym or the equipment.

“Because they were _yours_ ,” Nebula says firmly. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“I am not her,” Gamora insists. She remembers what Nova Prime had said, that they are the same except for some experiences. But experiences matter, clearly, as that Gamora was so different from her, despite what Nebula--and Drax and Mantis--will insist on. 

Nebula shakes her head and rolls her eyes in a way that makes her bristle, despite how noticeably different it is from the way the Nebula she knew would have made the same gesture. 

“You are all hopeless,” she says, sounding exasperated. “But yes. Because this stuff was Gamora’s. Who you happen to be. And because there’s just not enough room for more equipment. There’s more than one of each on the Quadrant.”

“Quill said that one was larger,” she says, deciding to ignore her continued insistence on her identity. 

“Much,” Nebula says. “Still hideously decorated. But for now we will have to choose, What do you want to do first?”

Gamora’s full of tension. She has been for days, but it’s amped up right now; powered partly, though she’s loath to admit it, by Quill’s sudden mood flip. She’d greatly love to go a round with that punching bag, but when Nebula had invited her to come work out here, she’d expressed an interest in hitting something _“in real life”_ after growing frustrated with the video game. 

“I will run first,” she decides. 

Nebula gives her a skeptical look. “Is that really what you want?”

Gamora bristles again. “I said it is what I want, did I not? What, did the other me not enjoy running or something?”

“ _You_ have always enjoyed running,” Nebula allows, apparently refusing to take the bait. That is new too. She used to know every hair-trigger, every jab to make her sister lose her cool. But now...now Gamora feels like the one constantly on edge, constantly about to snap. It feels vulnerable, and she hates it no matter how many times Nebula declines to take advantage.

“But?” Gamora presses, because clearly Nebula has some reason to doubt her choice, or she wouldn’t have said anything. Maybe she wouldn’t have even given Gamora the choice. _Maybe_ this is some sort of test after all.

Nebula smirks. “But you have always loved hitting or stabbing things when someone has upset you. In the absence of things to stab, I would think the punching bag would be your true preference.”

“I didn’t say running was my ‘true preference,’” Gamora points out. “I said I would run first. It was a courtesy, sister, since _you_ were the one commenting on your desire to hit things.”

Nebula actually looks a bit surprised by that admission. “In that case, even more reason for you to use the bag first. Come on. You can even picture Quill’s face on it.”

“What makes you think I would want to do that?” Gamora asks. Despite her confusion and irritation over Quill’s behavior, she has no desire to harm him. 

“Because he’s acting like an asshole,” Nebula says, as though this should be obvious. “ _I_ want to punch him.”

Gamora shrugs. “I have dealt with much worse.” Which is true. All of this, including the prickly behavior and being ripped from her place in time and all the accompanying confusion, is basically a dream compared to her past. 

“Not from him,” Nebula says, apparently a lot angrier about this than she is. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this from him.”

“Because of the other--” Gamora begins.

“ _Not_ other,” Nebula says harshly. 

Gamora sighs, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She can see that this is hurting her sister. It’s hurting all of them. She wishes she could be this person they all want her to be, that some of them seem to believe she is, but she’s just not; the other Gamora had a life, a family, love. She was a girlfriend and a sister and a hero. Apparently even a mother-figure. But she, Gamora right now, is just...who she has always been. Which is none of those things. 

“I will use the punching bag,” she says, deciding that is a peace-offering. “If that is what you wish. But I’m not going to picture anyone’s face on it.” She has the fleeting thought that she could picture Thanos’s face, but dispels that notion quickly; even now that he’s gone, the thought terrifies her. 

“It is what I wish,” says Nebula. For a moment Gamora thinks she’s trying to assert some sort of dominance, pointing out the fact that she’s gotten her way. She certainly seems pleased, but -- No, Gamora thinks. No, she is not pleased because she’s won. She’s pleased because she’s seen it as a peace offering, just as intended. No reason to get defensive about that now, it would completely defeat the purpose.

She releases the bag from its tether and circles it for a few moments, still feeling oddly apprehensive about this. She’s relatively certain that Nebula isn’t about to attack her, but the mere act of training still sends a wave of adrenaline through her, awakens plenty of unpleasant memories that all feel as though they happened just days ago. Finally she sucks in a breath and drives a half-hearted left hook at the bag. It swings a little, but not nearly as much as it could. Apparently it actually is made for someone of her ability level.

“You will not break it,” says Nebula, who can no doubt tell that she’s been holding back. She opts not to run after all, instead picking up a set of weights and adjusting their resistance. “Unlike Quill’s face, should you decide to punch it after all. I would not be opposed.”

Gamora sighs, punching the bag again, slightly harder. “I understand why I am a disappointment to him. I don’t blame him for being angry that I am not her.”

Nebula lets out a frustrated groan, lifting the weights she’s holding almost aggressively. She looks like she’d rather throw them or punch them. “First of all, for the eight thousandth time, you _are_. And second, he should not blame _you_ for coming from a different point in time, for not having those four years of experience that he did. That is the only thing that is different. Otherwise you are exactly the same person.”

Gamora punches the bag hard enough that it swings nearly a foot away and still wobbles as it comes back to her. “That is almost exactly what Nova Prime said.”

“What?” Nebula asks, pausing with her weights held above her head. “What did Nova Prime tell you?”

Gamora wonders if it was a mistake to bring this up, but figures she won’t be telling Nebula anything she doesn’t already know. “Well, she told me that they scan everybody who enters their headquarters.”

“Of course they do,” Nebula mutters, curling her weights now. 

“And she told me my biometrics are all exactly the same as the other Gamora’s,” she says. “But our brain activity was different, because we have different experiences.”

“And?” Nebula says, apparently unimpressed, proving her theory that she would already have assumed all this. “Is _that_ what you’re basing your assertion that you are different on?”

“Experiences are important,” Gamora says defensively, punching the bag harder. She has to catch it to stabilize it when it comes back. 

“Experiences can be replaced,” Nebula counters. “Or recreated. They do not make you who you are.”

“Then what does?” asks Gamora. She kicks the bag violently, this time sending it arcing several feet through the air, the elasticity and range of its tether truly impressive. She doesn’t bother to try and catch it when it comes back, just kicks it away again instead. “My _soul_? I would tell you that I don’t have one, except you said that’s what _he_ killed me for, right?” She lands two more kicks as she speaks, the bag beginning to make some noises of protest.

“I don’t know,” says Nebula, sounding sincere. “But I know it is not memories.” She’s still curling the weights, which doesn’t look to be much effort for her at all. Maybe she doesn’t want to be putting in full effort right now, judging by how intensely she’s focused on their conversation. 

Gamora watches her for an instant too long and has to duck to avoid being hit by the bag. She kicks it the hardest yet when it comes back again. Then a new thought comes to her. “Because Thanos altered yours?”

Nebula flinches visibly, has to shift her grip on the weights. “Do you want to know why he killed you? Because _my_ memories gave you away. Because you trusted me, and _he_ pulled them out like they were _his_ to view.”

This time Gamora does catch the bag, stopping it in its tracks. She holds it, almost unaware that she’s doing so, as she takes that in; and as she recalls Thanos doing the same thing to Nebula...past Nebula, the other Nebula...in order to get at this Nebula’s memories. _Two Nebulas_ , she had said. _No_ , Thanos had replied. _The same Nebula, from two different times_. 

“The other Gamora told you where the Soul Stone was?” Gamora asks quietly, again feeling that odd sense of betrayal from her other self. She’d sworn to herself when she’d learned its location that nobody else was ever to know, that anyone who did would either use the knowledge or be in danger because of it. 

“No,” Nebula says. “Only that you’d found it. You would not tell me where.”

“I should not have told you anything,” she says as evenly as she can. 

“Clearly,” Nebula says dryly. “But that was not my point.” 

“The other Nebula shared your memories,” she says, as it occurs to her that she never told her this. “She collapsed, and a memory of yours played from her eye. That is how Thanos knew to look into your mind.” 

“The same thing happened to me,” Nebula says, sounding unsurprised. “That is how I knew Thanos knew.” 

“But that Nebula was _not_ the same as you,” says Gamora, remembering what a shock it had been to see this woman -- this woman who both is and is not her sister -- for the first time. _Her_ Nebula certainly hadn't thought they were the same, had been desperate to convince Thanos of it. Had died for that belief. 

“She was, though,” Nebula insists. “She was _exactly_ me, back then.” She puts down the weights and takes a couple of steps closer to Gamora, the punching bag still between them. The movement is not quite a challenge. 

“You said she had all of your memories,” Gamora points out. “That she could see them just as you could see hers. So then why, by your reasoning, did she not instantly share your motives? Why did she not become you as soon as the memories intertwined?” She has to admit that idea scares her, that it could ever be possible for a person to change so entirely simply upon gaining knowledge. 

“Well,” says Nebula, “first of all it was not a complete exchange. Far from it. She had access only to what Thanos chose to examine. And also, as I keep telling you, memories are only one part of the equation. Environment matters too. And -- relationships, much as I am loath to admit it.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow. “What, in order to change you needed a furball and a tree?”

“No,” Nebula says pointedly. “I needed you.”

“You changed...because of me?” Gamora asks, hardly believing what she’s hearing.

“Yes,” Nebula says simply. 

“The other Nebula had me too,” she points out. 

This Nebula rolls her eyes. “I needed you as a _sister_.”

“My Nebula _hated_ me,” Gamora insists. She tried to kill her! As if she needed any more proof of her hatred. 

“She wished she hated you,” Nebula says, annoyingly calm. 

“She would not have wanted me as a sister,” Gamora says. Why is her heart going so fast? She knows she’s right. Nebula hates her...hated her. The other one did, anyway. This one...clearly does not. 

“That is all she wanted,” Nebula says. She steps a little closer, around the punching bag. Realizing that she’s been gripping it nearly tight enough to puncture it, Gamora relaxes her fingers but does not let go. “It’s all _I_ wanted. I did not want to believe it or admit it, especially not to you, but eventually I did...After I tried to kill you a couple more times.”

That, at least, is familiar to her. But the rest of it… It is undoubtedly true that the Nebula in front of her knows her as a sister, _loves_ her as a sister, regardless of how the other one may or may not have felt about her. And, admittedly, Gamora bet her life and reality on the chance to have this too. 

She thinks of the other Nebula, of how desperate she had looked. Of _you can change_ and _he won't let me._ She feels just as certain as that Nebula had that she cannot be the person they all know, but...why? She was a good person once, was she not? She has had plenty of fantasies about leaving Thanos, eliminating his threat to the galaxy and righting some of her own wrongs. He is gone now, but--

“I will only disappoint them,” she insists, her throat tight, her heart beating faster than ever. Perhaps Quill's insanity is contagious. “I will disappoint you.”

“Only if you do not try,” says Nebula, coming closer still and gently taking the bag from Gamora's hands, letting it hang still in the air.

“What did I do?” asks Gamora suddenly. “When you told me that you wanted a sister?”

“This.” 

Nebula moves very slowly, telegraphing every intention as she reaches out and wraps Gamora in a hug. Gamora stiffens at first, spends a long, panicked moment waiting for the inevitable attack. It doesn't come, though. After a while, she decides that the contact is sort of...nice. Secure. It reminds her of the way they were as children, in that brief time when it had felt like it was the two of them against the rest of the galaxy. 

“You _can_ have this,” says Nebula. “You can have whatever you want.” She pauses, shrugs without letting go, and when she speaks again, her tone is significantly lighter. “And if Quill cannot get with that program, then I will sew his face to his genitals.”


	8. Chapter 8

Despite his efforts not to, Peter did end up falling asleep in the cockpit, the sounds of Pat Benatar still playing in his ears. By the time he’d woken up, somehow feeling even shittier than when he’d fallen asleep, the ship had landed on Liri IV. 

He should’ve just stayed the fuck asleep. 

“This is the hottest godforsaken planet we’ve ever been on,” Rocket says. He kicks at a rock on the ground, as if it’s to blame for the scorching temperature. The rock slides over the stone beneath their feet, overgrown with moss and grass, and hits a nearby tree. Not that that’s much of a feat; something thrown in any direction here has about a fifty/fifty shot of hitting either a tree or some creepy old ruin. 

“What about Thowei?” Mantis says, way too cheerful even though she’s drenched in sweat just like the rest of them. “The Volcano Planet!”

“I think that was actually colder than this,” Nebula says. Neither she nor this Gamora seem like they’re that bothered, though. They’re leading the pack up the rocky, obstacle-laden hill that goes on forever. This is especially infuriating to Peter right now, as he’s in the back with Groot, sweatier than the others and trying to hide the fact that he’s panting, and the pack of supplies he’s carrying on his back feels like it’s full of stones. Every time the incline increases he wants to cry. 

“I am Groot,” he says sulkily. He doesn’t have his game out, the terrain too treacherous for him to navigate without looking, as he’d found out the hard way; the missing bark on his knee is a testament to that. 

“Yeah, I know it sucks,” says Peter irritably. 

It’s not like he needs any of the others to tell him how miserable it is. He can feel that plenty well himself. And it’s also perfectly clear that they blame him for the fact that they’ve all ended up here, trudging through this mess. He’s the one who asked for the job, after all, and accepted it without any real information or research beyond the fact that Dey had promised it would be easy. He’s going to give Dey some shit about that when they get back, he thinks. But for now the complaints are only worsening his sour mood, each comment feeling like they’re rubbing in how much of a fuck up he is lately. 

“It’s an easy way to make some units,” he continues, though Groot hasn’t said anything further, hasn’t protested or requested any elaboration.

“If this is easy, I’d hate to see your definition of hard,” says Rocket. 

“I thought you didn’t approve of doing jobs for money,” Nebula tosses over her shoulder. “I seem to recall some choice words about how we are not mercenaries.” She offers Gamora a triumphant smile, and she returns it with a smaller one of her own.

Peter glares at their backs. Busy as he’s been trying not to pass out, he can’t help noticing that something’s changed in the dynamic between them. They seem...closer, somehow. Unified. It’s disconcerting and he doesn’t like it.

“I don’t mind this environment,” says not-Gamora, almost as if reading his mind. “I would take this over snow any day.”

Peter stumbles, just barely managing to catch himself before he face plants into the rocky ground. Why would she say that? Is she thinking of Vormir? Does she know that’s where--

“I am Groot!” He smirks at him. 

“Dude, _you_ fell like ten minutes ago,” Peter mutters. Groot’s smirk falls and turns to a scowl, but Peter’s more focused on trying to calm his galloping heart. Gamora always hated the cold. And even though this Gamora is totally not the same, that apparently still is. There’s no reason to think she had anything else in mind. 

Not that that stops his mind racing with thoughts of it anyway. 

“This is beautiful!” Drax declares, bothered by no such thing. Indeed, he doesn’t seem bothered by anything. He’s at the front right behind Gamora and Nebula, taking in the creepy, muggy surroundings like he’s a tourist. “It reminds me of the jungles of my home planet.”

“Is your home planet a sun?” Rocket asks derisively. 

“No,” Drax says, glancing back at him as though concerned for his intelligence. “It is a planet.”

“I am Groot,” he says in his whiniest tone, dragging his feet even more dramatically than before. 

“Because that was the closest place we could park the ship,” Peter says as patiently as he can, which is not very patiently at all. “There’s not enough clear ground to park any closer.”

“We shoulda just dropped the supplies on top of their heads,” Rocket grumbles. 

“I am Groot,” Groot points out. It’s the first thing he’s said since they landed that didn’t sound petulant.

“Ohhh, _right_ ,” says Rocket in that same mocking tone. “The thievin’ _monkeys._ That sounds made up. Another Quill daydream special.”

“What are monkeys?” asks Mantis, doing a little light-footed hop-skip over a log in her path. “They sound very funny.”

“I believe they are a religious deity,” Drax says unhelpfully. 

“As opposed to some other type of deity?” Rocket shoots back. 

“They are from that Terran movie Quill never shuts up about,” says Nebula, surprising Peter with both her recollection and her willingness to contribute to the conversation at all. “The one about the wizards and the red boots. The monkeys had wings. And were _fictional._ ”

“Okay, okay,” says Peter, sighing heavily. He _really_ doesn’t want to be talking about this when it’s all he can do to walk and breathe at the same time, but he also can’t stand the bickering. “They’re not actually monkeys, but the name was really long and that’s totally what they looked like!” Dey had shown him a picture on the holo, along with a warning about how the things are dangerous, especially with the way they’ve been rapidly repopulating Liri IV. 

“They are not monkeys?” Mantis asks, antennae wilting in disappointment. 

“They’re--basically space monkeys,” Peter says defensively. 

Rocket appears unimpressed. What else is new? “And we’re supposed to be scared of ‘em why?”

“Cause they’re real smart, I guess,” Peter says. He’d shrug, but the straps of his pack are already digging into his shoulders, despite the hovertech that’s supposed to be helping lighten the load. “And they like to steal stuff, and there’s a shit ton of ‘em. Apparently they managed to get their population back up to what it was in less than five years, and now that the half that were snapped are back…”

He trails off, rubs a hand over his face. God, he hates thinking about anything to do with the snap or Thanos or...anything. 

“If we were warned that they are dangerous,” imposter-Gamora says, “then we should be vigilant.”

Rocket snorts derisively, glaring at the back of her head. “We’ve been out here this whole time and I ain’t seen a single thing bigger than an Orloni. I don’t think we have to worry about some dumb animal.” 

“I am not scared!” Drax shouts into the surrounding woods. “Come face me, space monkeys!” 

“Yes!” Mantis says eagerly. “I want to see a monkey!”

“You will not either way,” Nebula says. “Because they are not monkeys.”

“Well,” says Peter, mostly just to be contrary to her, “I mean, they _kinda_ are. If Rocket is a space raccoon, then--”

“Watch it, Quill,” Rocket interrupts, kicking a rock in his direction. 

It almost trips him, instead hits him in the shin hard enough to hurt. 

“Hey!” Peter half-yelps. He might be the least pissed off at Rocket right now, but that doesn't mean he isn't still plenty pissed. 

Rocket shrugs and smirks. “Whatever, humie. Ain't my fault you're out of shape. And not evolved for any real terrain.”

“Hey!” Peter starts again, but then he has to stop abruptly -- both talking and walking -- to avoid running straight into Drax, who's suddenly gone still. 

Groot doesn't quite get the memo, bumping into Peter and nearly knocking him over. He snakes out a vine to stabilize him, which is both helpful and totally annoying. Mantis is dancing from foot to foot in one spot. 

“What the hell?” asks Peter. 

Nebula shushes him from her position at the front, where she has also frozen, right beside not-Gamora. 

“What?” he repeats in a stage whisper when they don't volunteer any further information. 

“You don't hear it?” asks Gamora, glancing back at him quickly. 

“Hear what?” He glares at her imposter face. 

“Movement,” says Nebula. “In the trees.”

He glances around frantically, as if eyesight might help him where his ears have failed. But he doesn’t see any sign of movement in the trees or anywhere else. There’s not even a slight breeze to make the leaves rustle. 

“No,” he says slowly, looking around at everybody. He appears to be the only one who can’t hear it, which is just typical. 

“So there’s an animal or two out there,” Rocket says with a roll of his eyes. “We’re on a stinkin’ jungle planet, what did you expect?”

“It stopped,” Drax says, shoulders deflating. “If it was the monkeys, they should come attack like warriors!”

“Can we please not goad anything to attack us?” Peter says warily. “Let’s just go drop off this stuff already, we should be nearly there.”

Gamora and Nebula exchange glances, then Nebula says. “Fine. But let’s hurry up.” As if _she’s_ the one who gets to decide. 

“Gee, thanks for your permission,” Peter says grumpily. 

She glares at him before she starts moving again. “Don’t think I’m helping you if you get attacked by those things.”

“Somehow I’ll get over it,” he says. She ignores him, which annoys him more. 

“Oh, no,” Rocket says in a fake-scared voice. “Some little jungle animals might come and try to bite our ankles, I’m so scared. How ever would we face such a challenge?” 

“The critters in the pictures Dey showed me were a lot bigger than you,” says Peter, mostly just to goad _him_. He might not like the idea of fighting monkeys, but his mood is sour enough that an argument with Rocket is still plenty appealing. Besides, he’s perfectly able to do _that_ at the same time as completing this job.

“You’re bigger than me too,” says Rocket, turning around and raking his eyes over Peter’s body in a clearly judgmental way. “Especially lately. But I could still kick your ass any day if I wanted to.”

“Children,” Nebula says warningly. She’s still moving, though, so Peter isn’t too concerned. 

“I didn’t hear you teasing Thor about his weight,” he points out.

“Oh, don’t worry, I did,” says Rocket.

Peter sighs and falls silent again. He loses track of time as they continue trudging along, mostly because it’s going so damn slowly. They should be there by now, he thinks. Probably. He can’t entirely remember the map, mostly because the heat is making his whole head feel kind of fuzzy. But still, they must be almost there. Then all they’ve gotta do is drop the supplies, hike back out, and he can be back on the Benatar with a nice cool--

Abruptly, Mantis stops and doubles over, giggling.

“Mantis?” Peter says, taking a step towards her. He’s not entirely sure if he should be concerned or annoyed. It normally doesn’t take much to amuse her...but her antennae are glowing. 

“What’s wrong with her?” Rocket asks. He’s apparently going with annoyed. 

“Something touched me!” she says, still laughing. 

“Why is that funny?” Gamora asks. The others have all stopped now, watching Mantis with varying degrees of alarm. 

“Did it tickle?” Drax asks. 

“What was it?” Nebula asks. 

“I don’t know,” Mantis says. She’s calmed down enough to stand straight, though she’s still giggling. “But it was furry, I think. And it was planning something it found very amusing!”

A few of them look at Rocket. “Are you planning to blow something up?” Peter asks.

Rocket snarls at him. “No, you moron, I didn’t touch her! It was probably just some--” 

He pauses suddenly, his ears snapping to attention. Everyone has stilled, actually, except Peter, again looking around them, up at the tops of the trees and into the dark depths of the jungle they can’t see. 

“What?” he asks, exasperated that his Terran ears are so weak. No one responds, except Nebula, who shushes him. He’s about to just give up and go on without them when all of a sudden he can hear it too; rustling in the leaves. A lot of it. Nearby. 

“Probably just some harmless animals,” he says. He reaches to his hips for his blasters anyway, though--only to discover that they’re not there. 

For a moment he feels an actual wave of paradoxical relief at that. The others are playing some sort of elaborate joke on him, he’s suddenly certain. The rustling he’s heard is nothing more than the wind. 

The others are taking advantage of the briefing he’s given them on the monkeys. Wait until he’s told them about the relevant threats in the area and is also totally distracted by trying not to fall down or pass out, then pretend that they’re all hearing something that just happens to be totally alarming to them but completely undetectable to him. Hilarious. Probably orchestrated by Nebula and not-Gamora, since they clearly both think he’s an idiot.

“Okay,” says Peter, crossing his arms and glaring around at the group again. “Who took ‘em?”

“Took what?” asks Mantis, still hiccupping occasionally now that her giggling has faded a bit.

“Rocket?” asks Peter, ignoring her. He’s pretty sure she’s not the one. Besides, Rocket is the biggest pickpocket in the group.

“Shut up!” Nebula hisses. “All of you shut up and take defensive positions! We are surrounded.”

Imposter-Gamora has her imposter sword out, he notices. She’s selling this well.

“Hey!” says Drax, not quietly at all. “Where are my knives?”

“What the hell?” Rocket exclaims. He’s pulling out the pockets of his pants, which are empty. “I had half a dozen bombs on me!” 

“I am Groot!” He’s twisted around to look at the side pocket of the pack he’s carrying, which is also empty, but wasn’t before; that’s where he’d put his game. Appearing incredibly distressed, he gropes at the pocket as though it might simply be hiding in there.

That’s when Peter starts to actually get worried. Groot takes that game everywhere with him, almost like Peter had been with the Walkman. He doesn’t think he’d even joke about losing it. 

“My blasters are gone too,” he confesses. 

“You said the space monkeys are thieves, did you not?” Gamora asks. She’s scanning the trees around them, but doesn’t appear to see anything. Peter’s so busy being worried, he can only spare a little annoyance at that. 

“Yeah,” he says, wishing he’d paid more attention to Dey’s explanation. He knows he’d said they steal stuff. He also said they were dangerous. He’d also said a few other things that Peter can’t remember no matter how hard he thinks, which maybe isn’t very hard because he’s exhausted and a little light-headed and everything hurts and come on, how bad could some space monkeys be? 

Pretty goddamn bad, it turns out. 

“Look out!” Gamora yells, pointing her sword to the trees at their left. 

Peter looks, expecting to see maybe a slightly bigger version of the animals he’d seen at the zoo as a kid. But instead, what emerges from the trees is a snarling, sharp-toothed, hunch-backed, gigantic _monster_. The thing easily comes up to his chest hunched over, but when it straightens up, he realizes that it’s taller than he is. Also, he’d thought it was furry when Dey had shown him the pictures, but it actually appears to be covered in some sort of hairy green mold that’s allowed it to blend in with the terrain. And it smells like a sewer, detectable even from several yards away. So okay. Clearly he wasn’t paying enough attention to Dey’s briefing.

“Whoa!” he breathes, and reaches instinctively for his blasters again, only to be reminded _again_ that he doesn’t have them. And he’s not wearing his rocket boots either, because for one thing he’d stupidly expected this to be easy, and for another they would have been completely impractical with the heavy pack on his back. Now, though, he feels completely exposed as the _thing_ comes rushing at them too fast for him to say anything to his team.

Fortunately, Nebula and Gamora appear to be functioning as their own smaller unit right now, both of them moving lightning-quick to block the thing’s path. Nebula has her batons out, and Gamora has her sword, both of them too fast and too sharp to be pick-pocketed by the monkey-things. He’d like to be bitter about that right now, but he’s too busy being glad that anyone around him is equipped to fight these things.

“ _That_ is a fucking monkey?” Rocket yells. He’s frantically looking around, either for more of the creatures or for anything he can use as a weapon. 

“Nope,” Peter says, grabbing a rock off the ground. Lot of good that’ll probably do, but he’s got to have something. “No, that is most definitely not a monkey.” There’s something maybe, kinda sorta similar about its face, but that’s about it. Still, when he sees Gamora swing her sword at the thing, he winces, because he already had it in his head that they were like zoo animals. Plus, it had made Mantis giggle! Maybe they’re not all that bad. 

“Hey, don’t kill it!” he yells, too late; Gamora’s sword has already made contact… 

Then he sees that her sword, the _Godslayer_ , has barely made more than a scratch on the thing’s monstrous chest. 

“We’d be lucky to do more than annoy it!” Nebula shouts furiously. She attempts to hit it with one of her batons but the thing shoves it away with its arm. 

Then the creature opens its mouth--and holy shit, its teeth are sharp and _gigantic_ \--and lets out a loud, terrifying bellow that shakes the ground underneath them. 

Or maybe that’s the stampede of other monkey-monsters that come bounding out of the trees in response, every one of them as big as the first. 

“Well, shit,” Peter mutters. He has the fleeting, absurd thought that he’s somehow caused this, jinxed them by telling Gamora not to just kill the damn things. Like maybe her sword would have cut straight through the beast if he’d just kept his mouth shut, because that seems to be the way his luck is going lately. 

He throws the rock as hard as he can at the impending tide of monkey-monsters, but all it does is fly in between two of them, not so much as landing a bruise. He thinks for a moment of his Celestial powers, how it had felt to be able to use the things around him, to make _himself_ into a weapon. To be strong and powerful and more than just human. To not need the blasters that have been ripped away without his even realizing.

“Hey!” Drax yells, his voice equal parts petulant and frustrated, not a hint of fear in it, as though they aren’t hopelessly outnumbered and overpowered here. “Those are my knives! You took my knives, I will tear you to pieces!” He goes charging at the monkey-beast that’s currently wielding said knives, planning to fight it with his bare hands.

“Drax!” Peter yells. “Wait!” He runs towards him, thinking what an idiot he is for trying to go after this thing with no weapons. But then again, what does that make Peter, for thinking he can help without any weapons either? 

Drax has no plans to wait, but luckily Mantis is right there. Just as the crazy demon monkey is about to either run Drax over or stab him -- apparently it’s smart enough to know how to use the knives it stole -- she jumps onto its back, hands on either side of its head. 

“Sleep!” she yells. She’s got her legs wrapped around it, has to hold on in order to not be thrown off as it screams and thrashes around for a few seconds before finally, her powers work. The beast collapses to the ground with her on top of it. 

“Hey, that one was mine!” Drax says petulantly. 

Peter hardly registers that, though. His heart is suddenly pounding in his throat, paralyzed at the memory of Mantis doing that same thing to Thanos. That had been his plan, it had nearly worked, and then he’d found out--Thanos told him--he--

He’s violently pulled out of that train of thought when there’s a sudden grip on the backpack he’s wearing. One of the monkey beasts picks him up by it, and he barely has time to yelp before the thing flings the pack -- which tears off his shoulders, literally _torn_ by the straps -- and he’s hurled several feet away, skidding across the stoney ground. 

He lands hard on his tailbone, the wind knocked from his lungs so that he momentarily sees stars. He thinks that he’s probably just broken his ass -- and not for the first time, sadly enough -- but his head is spinning so badly that he’s suddenly worried he’s got a concussion too. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing? 

Then he opens his eyes, painfully, and is hit by such a strong wave of monkey-beast smell that he has to turn his head to gag. When he’s finally able to focus again, he finds himself completely surrounded. Four of the things are advancing on him, their footfalls heavy enough that he can feel the ground shaking under him. He tries to stand and can only stumble back, the ground swimming under him and pain shooting up his spine. 

He has no weapons, no distractions, no ability to even run.

He is going to die, he thinks. He is going to die right now, probably being ripped apart one limb at a time by these _things_. After leading his team directly into danger. And for all the times over the past few days that he’s wished he could cease to exist, wished he had died with his Gamora, now -- Now he finds himself utterly terrified, desperate for some, _any_ kind of miracle that could just give him a chance.

“Quill! Duck!” That’s Gamora’s voice, shouting at him from some place he’s too disoriented to place. Maybe he’s imagining it. Maybe he’s already dead and he’ll get to see her again--

The sound of an explosion reaches his ears at the same time a body lands on top of him, rolling him over so he’s on his stomach and they’re on his back. It’s Gamora, he knows, even in his dizzy, injured, confused state. Not his Gamora, but the same body, he’d know it anywhere. He feels her hands come up to shield his head. The ground vibrates for a second before it stills. Then the pressure is taken off his head and he hears Gamora’s voice again: “Are you okay?”

He turns his head to look at her. She’s still half on top of him. There’s some dust in the air from whatever blew up, and she’s looking at him with such concern that for a split second he forgets this isn’t the real Gamora. This is exactly what she would have done, after all: saved his ass. 

“I’m fine,” he says, even though that’s a lie. He hurts pretty much everywhere, but hey, he’s alive. Thanks to her, it seems. “What happened?” 

“I found one of Rocket’s bombs,” she says, standing up and offering him a hand. “But it didn’t do much.” 

He takes her hand and sees that she’s right. There’s a hole in the stone pathway where the bomb must have gone off, about the size of his head, but no dead monster-monkey bodies around it. There’s a few that appear to have been hurt by it, and they’re keeping a berth around this area, apparently fearful, meaning Peter’s able to look around and take stock for a moment without being imminently attacked.  
There are still more than a dozen of them around -- at least, assuming that he isn’t seeing double. Drax has jumped onto the back of another one that’s got his knives -- maybe taken from the first one before he could retrieve them, or maybe Drax has managed to lose them twice somehow -- and is practically riding it like a mechanical bull, narrowly avoiding getting thrown off every few seconds. It’s not effective at all in terms of either defeating the thing or getting his knives back, but at least it can’t seem to stab him in his current position. Nebula has her batons going in high voltage mode, which at least makes the monkey-beasts fall back a few steps every time she sends an arc of blue lightning sizzling through the fray. 

Mantis has a handful of the creatures snoring at her feet, and so far none of them have started to stir again. She’s clearly doing better than anyone else in this fight, which really probably shouldn’t be a surprise. Peter’s seen her take down an actual god, after all. At least for a while. For a moment he panics when it occurs to him that he can’t see Rocket or Groot -- But then he spots them, up in the top of one of the trees. Groot is sending down vines to entangle and trip the monkeys, Rocket directing the strategy.

“Hey,” Peter breathes, when he realizes Gamora is still looking at him, probably because he’s standing here frozen like an idiot. “Uh -- thanks.”

Meeting her gaze, he sees that familiar Gamora strength there, eyes blazing the way they always did in battle, and he gets the bizarre urge to smile. Him and Gamora, working together in a fight, it’s just like…

Then she nods once, simply, and runs back into the fray to help Drax not get killed by the beast he’s pissing off more and more every second. 

Right, okay, Peter thinks. Focus. He’s got to shove away any and all thoughts that might distract him, just focus on the immediate--pretty sizeable--problem at hand here. Shut out the distractions, shut out the pain, be the damn captain. Besides, these dickhead monkeys aren’t gonna leave him be for long. Though the fact that he doesn’t have anything left on him to steal probably makes him a less appealing target. 

Actually, though--the monkeys didn’t get everything. 

He reaches into a lower pocket on the side of his pants and pulls out the only thing they didn’t manage to swipe from him: a gravity mine. He finds the biggest group of the jerks that are close together -- the ones currently facing off with Nebula -- and throws the mine with his trademark Star-Lord Accuracy. 

He manages to get four of them sucked onto the thing, and they scream and squirm in rage. He’s under no delusions that it’s going to hold them for long, though. 

“Focus on getting our weapons back!” He directs the team. 

“I am trying!” says Drax, beating on the back of the monkey’s head with his fists. He does that for a few seconds, then looks at his hands, which seem to now hurt from the impacts with the beast’s skull. 

“Try not to break yourself in the process!” Peter yells back.

“No beast shall destroy Drax the Destroyer!” Drax booms, then goes back to punching futilely. 

Fortunately, Gamora has the creature’s attention now. She’s still not able to do much in the way of actually hurting it, but the thing has decided to fight her with Drax’s knives. It’s trying clumsily to stab her, finding itself met with her sword each time. Each time, it gets more frustrated, howling louder than Drax’s war cries. 

Peter is trying desperately to work out a way that he can help them when he catches sight of something else: the beast that’s stolen his blasters, currently trying to figure out how to use them. It appears to lack the dexterity for the triggers, but he doesn’t want to give it too much time to find out.

“Groot!” he calls, pointing at the beast. Then he has another thought and adds, “Mantis! Put that one to sleep after Groot slows it down!”

His team has this irritating habit of not listening to him and his totally awesome plans, and he’s briefly fearful that this is going to be one of those times. But mercifully, Groot obeys instantly, wrapping his vines around the beast’s ankles. When it turns around with an angry howl to try to find the offender, it trips over the vines. As it stumbles, Mantis leaps off the back of the one she’d just put to sleep to do the same to this one.

It swings its arms around wildly as it tries to get Mantis off, and Peter’s afraid it’s either gonna shoot the blasters off somehow or break them. As its eyes slip closed, he runs up and rips the blasters from its stinking hands before it hits the ground. 

“Awesome job,” he tells Mantis, who grins, delighted. “You too, Groot!” 

Groot doesn’t reply except to point behind him. Peter whips around to see a monster-monkey running towards him. This one’s got a few cuts on its chest, having tangoed with Gamora’s sword already, which is probably why it looks super pissed off. Not that any of them look pleasant-tempered. 

“Take this, you evil thief!” Peter shouts as he shoots the thing as many times as he can. Unsurprisingly, the shots don’t do much more than leave burn marks where they hit, but that at least causes it sufficient pain or annoyance to change course and stop running right for him. 

“Find one of my bombs!” Rocket shouts from his place up in the trees. 

“You can see them way better from up there!” Peter says incredulously. “We’re trying not to get killed down here!” 

“Not my fault you got Terran vision,” Rocket yells. “And Terran stupidity, too. I ain’t comin’ down there.”

Peter sighs, irritated once again. He’s been thinking that maybe he was being too tough on Rocket, that maybe he was the one creating the problems between them. But this...this just confirms that they’ve still got way more to work out. “Way to be a team player, dude.”

Rocket shrugs again. “Ain’t my fault I spent the last five years without a team!”

“Come on.” Peter wipes a hand across his eyes, frustration and pain wearing on him again. He doesn’t get a chance to brood, though, turning again just in time to shoot another monster that was advancing quickly. 

“Quill, look out!” comes Gamora’s voice, and he spins a third time, just in time to find Drax’s knives in his face. That creature’s apparently tired of sword fighting with Gamora, or -- He quickly takes in the blood pouring down its face and realizes that she’s managed to blind the thing, or at least impair its sight. Unfortunately that seems to have made it only more dangerous, now stumbling around violently without any direction. Drax is still on its back, too.

“Mantis, quick!” says Peter. 

She hardly needs to be told at all, leaping onto its back...on top of Drax. She manages to put the thing to sleep, which sends it crashing to the ground, both of them on top of it. By the time she gets to her feet again, her antennae are glowing. For a second she’s still, her whole body tensing, then she opens her mouth and lets out a shrill, furious battle cry that’s loud enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of Peter’s neck. 

“Mantis, snap out of it!” he tells her. For a second, he’s afraid that she’s absorbed Drax’s recklessness too and she’s going to start mindlessly punching one of the beasts, but thankfully it doesn’t take long for her antennae to fade to normal again. She giggles when she comes out of it. 

“You are very angry,” she tells Drax. 

“They stole my knives!” he says, snatching them out of the unconscious monster’s hands. “Twice! The rest of them will pay!” Another one is charging towards them, and Drax takes it upon himself to try to stab it as much as possible. Mantis goes with him to do some _actual_ damage to it. 

“I am Groot!” he calls from the treetop. He’s pointing at one of the ones that Nebula and Gamora are fighting, the two of them managing to hold off more of them than the rest of them combined. 

“Make that one pay first!” Rocket says, pointing to the same one. 

Peter activates his mask so he can take advantage of the better vision he has in the thing, and narrows in on the one Groot and Rocket are pointing to, which is clutching a bomb in one of its fists as it tries to punch Nebula’s batons. 

“Groot, distract it!” Peter yells. There’s no way he’s gonna be able to get at the one monkey-monster with a bunch of other ones around it, even with Gamora and Nebula fighting them off. 

Groot responds immediately, though the creature is farther away than most of the others he’s been attacking. He’s starting to run out of steam a bit on the vines, and these take longer to grow than the past few sets. Peter feels something in his chest tighten as he wonders whether he’s pushing Groot too far, whether he’s asked something unreasonable. The last thing he wants is for any of the others to get hurt, particularly on one of his orders. He hopes Groot would tell him if that was the case, though...or that at least Rocket and his protective instincts would intervene.

Still, that fear is almost realized a moment later, as Groot’s vines reach the beast. He snares its ankles like he has with the others, but the vines are thin and it’s clearly a struggle for him to hold on. As soon as the beast starts pulling, Groot starts to slip from the tree branches.

“Groot, hold on!” yells Rocket.

“Let go!” says Peter, then realizes how unclear and potentially dangerous that is. “Of the monkey! Hold onto the tree! Definitely hold onto the tree.”

Groot pulls his vines back in, but they’ve already done the trick...sort of. The monkey-monster has dropped the grenade it was holding, preparing to charge at Peter instead. Before he can even call out, Gamora notices it and ducks down, scooping it up. 

“Quill!” she yells, holding it over her head. “Catch!”

She lobs it over the angry beast and Peter has the split second thought that for all he knows, the bomb might be activated and he could be about to catch his death. But this is Gamora, and any version of her is more careful than that. He catches it with one hand just in time to dive out of the way of the running monster -- and then he’s gotta take off running himself, because it turns quickly to continue its chase. 

“Throw it here!” Rocket demands, holding his paw out. 

Peter tosses the bomb up to him as he passes under the branch he’s on, that Groot is pulling himself back up on. “If you could hurry up,” Peter says, once he’s caught it, “that would be great!” The devil monkeys that he’d managed to trap with his gravity mine have broken free. A couple of them have joined the ones fighting Gamora and Nebula, but the others have decided that joining the one trying to attack him would be more fun. 

“I gotta do everything!” Rocket yells. He fiddles with the bomb, doing something to it, then, “Get outta the way, morons!” 

Peter’s not sure who he’s talking to but he sure hopes it’s not him because he can’t do anything but run and duck and weave away from the demons chasing him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gamora and Nebula leap off to the side, away from the ones they’re fighting. Before the monkeys can even turn back towards them, Rocket spikes the bomb into their midst. 

This one is far more effective than the one Gamora used to rescue him, either by luck or because Rocket’s managed to doctor it somehow. He’s not gonna question that; all he really knows right now is that he’s damn lucky it wasn’t activated when he caught it, and that there’s no way he’s going to be able to outrun the immense fireball that’s rapidly filling the clearing behind him. Ignoring the way his entire body protests, he throws himself into the thickest set of bushes he can see, then manages to roll behind a wide, moss-covered tree trunk. It’s not much in the way of cover, but it’ll just have to do.

The fireball and the shockwave come roaring by a split second later, the heat and the sound of it both immense. The change in air pressure makes his ears pop, then ring, and he’d be worried about deafness were it not for the fact that he can hear the monkey-things crying out in equal parts anger and pain. For all that they’ve been trying to kill him for the past who even knows how long, he has a momentary stab of guilt over the idea that he’s caused that amount of suffering to any animal. And _god_ , he really hopes all of his friends have managed to get out of the way, to find at least as much shelter as he’s got here. 

A moment later, the worst of it has passed, except the continued crying of the monkeys and their thunderous footfalls. His head is equal parts spinning and throbbing so badly that it takes him far longer than it ought to realize that the things are running away, leaving the smell of sewage and burnt flesh in their wake.

He hears Rocket curse, and the vague muttering and moaning of other voices, and he finally drags himself out from behind the tree, though standing makes him nauseous. He pushes that down and takes stock of the surroundings. 

The tree he was hiding behind has turned black on the other side, burned to a char, as have many of the other trees around them. All the moss and grass that was on the ground in the area where Rocket threw the bomb has been burned away as well, the path of the blast mapped out in the stone pathway. 

And the others… His eyes scan automatically for Gamora, though he hates himself for it because that’s not _her_ but it is some kind of version of her and the thought of seeing her body--

He shakes his head and pushes down the fresh wave of nausea that accompanies that thought because she’s _fine_ , they’re all fine. Drax seems pretty pissed off, yelling into the trees after the monkey-monsters about how they’re cowards, and Mantis is breathing hard, probably exhausted from putting so many to sleep. He doesn’t know if those monsters blew up or woke up or were carried off by their fellow demons, but their bodies aren’t here anymore. 

“Unbelievable,” Rocket says. He and Groot have descended from their tree and Rocket is looking over the area, apparently also pissed off. “Even _that_ didn’t manage to kill them? Are they immortal?”

“Who cares?” Nebula says, putting her batons away. “They’re gone.” 

“But they might not stay that way,” Peter says. He rubs his face, which feels dirty and grimy and disgusting. “So let’s get these damn supplies up to the outpost and get the hell out of here before any more of them show up.” 

“Yes,” says Nebula, “that is wise.” 

She glances around the area as well, and for a moment Peter worries that she’s hearing something else he can’t. He’s not about to take that possibility for granted again, not about to let himself get caught so completely unaware. He’s been pretty stupid about this job on the whole, and he’s not about to let himself forget that he’s almost cost his team their lives. And his too, but he’s somehow much less bothered by that than the idea of putting the others in danger.

Nebula takes a decisive few steps toward some bushes that have been burned to a crisp, then sinks her hands into them and pulls something out. At first Peter thinks it’s some part of a monkey creature’s body, the whole thing so singed and tattered that he only belatedly realizes it’s the pack the one had pulled off his back, apparently discarded now.

“They dropped this,” she tells him, holding it out.

“Oh.” Peter crosses the distance and takes it from her, then nearly falls over at the shift of weight. It was difficult enough to carry the thing _before_ he’d gone and gotten the crap beat out of him, plus he’s pretty certain the hover tech is broken now. “Awesome.”

“Give me that,” says Gamora, striding past him and taking the pack before he can even attempt to put it on his back. She lifts it like it weighs nothing, of course. 

He’s about to protest, but she crosses over to Groot next, and fishes something out of the pocket of her jacket: his game, which she’s apparently managed to retrieve from the monkeys at some point during the fight.

“You take this,” she tells him, then continues up the path toward the Nova outpost before anyone else has a chance to say anything.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's commented so far!! We really appreciate you guys, it puts a little pep in our step when we get nice comments! <3

Gamora’s beginning to hate the color orange. Every time she goes to sleep, she sees that color in flashes, along with snow and the sensation of being cold. It’s almost always the same. Tonight’s dream was no different, and though she ought to be used to it by now, she still wakes up feeling unsettled. 

That might also have something to do with the fact that she slept a bit longer than usual. They had all gone almost immediately to their bunks after getting back from Liri IV, although Gamora had taken the time for a quick shower first. She fell asleep easily, too, which concerns her, even though she was exhausted from the day spent in the jungle. She’s growing far too comfortable here, in this ship, in this room, in this bed. They are not hers to keep, she reminds herself. 

The ship’s day cycle has not yet begun, but she’s gotten more than enough sleep, and she doesn’t particularly want to try to go back to sleep when she knows what confusing images she’ll see if she does. So she gets up, deciding that she’ll get a drink of water and then perhaps do what exercises she can in the common area, or back in this room. She’s not about to walk through the bunks to get to the gym while the others are in there, even if they are asleep. 

It still feels odd, being on this ship. Being _trusted_ with being on this ship, free to move about as she pleases, take advantage of their resources that she has done absolutely nothing to earn. Well, not nothing, exactly. But she doesn’t think they are going to ask her to repay them in units from these jobs. Or let her, judging by the way Nebula had reacted when she’d suggested keeping a tab. 

She still feels on edge as she opens the small refrigerator and peers in, tries to decide what she wants. It feels as though one of her siblings, or perhaps Thanos himself, might be about to catch her at this, remind her that she could never be the sort of person who deserves any of these things. Or who _does_ good things, as if the past couple of days could do anything to change the person she is. The person he has _made_ her.

Frustrated with herself, she closes the door of the refrigerator harder than necessary, opting only for water after all. Taking a sip of it, she freezes, suddenly aware of the sounds of another person coming from the cockpit above.

It only takes her a few seconds to figure out that the person is Quill. She can pick out his breathing and heart rate, much as it embarrasses her to realize that she’s learned to do that in just a few days. But even if she couldn’t identify him from that, she can just make out the faint strains of a song that must be coming from his music device. 

She can also hear him crying. 

Something in her chest clenches unpleasantly at that sound, at that knowledge; guilty, sad...wanting to help. But she is the reason he’s crying, she knows -- or at least part of it. Because she’s not _her_ , not the one he wants her to be. She’s probably the last person he wants to see right now, especially with the way he’s acted towards her today. She can’t imagine how going up there would help him. 

She’s just going to go back to her room--the room she’s been staying in, not _her room_ , it’s not hers--and pretend she didn’t hear him. 

She makes it about two steps before she pauses again. He’d been limping, she remembers suddenly, when they were hiking back down to the ship. He had numerous visible cuts and scrapes, and probably a lot more injuries that weren’t visible. What if he’s crying from physical pain, not emotional? 

She’ll just poke her head up the ladder to see if he’s okay. Then she’ll leave him be. He’ll never even know she was there. 

She holds that conviction all the way up the ladder, until she gets to the top and catches sight of him. The idea was to come up here to see whether he’s okay, but...But she never thought beyond that point, never let herself consider what she’d do if he wasn’t. Because now that she’s up here, looking at him, she can’t deny the reality that he most certainly _isn’t_.

He’s sitting slumped forward in the seat that Mantis had referred to as _hers_ earlier. The one she had refused to take, because it belonged to...well. She has promised herself to at least try to change the way she thinks about this, at least for Nebula’s sake. Still, he’s sitting slumped forward in the seat, his head in his hands. His shoulders are shaking as he cries, his breathing raspy. 

_This is for all the lonely people,_ she hears through the headphones, and the words further twist something behind her sternum. _Thinking that life has passed them by._

She is lonely, she realizes abruptly. She _has_ been lonely for most of her life, but...but this is different. This is not the loneliness of being surrounded by enemies, but of being surrounded by friends she’s afraid to have.

“Quill?” she says softly. When he doesn’t respond, she takes a few steps closer, says it again, louder.

He looks up at her, his face pale and his eyes red, a cut trailing dried blood across his left temple. And he flinches at the sight of her, before he pushes his headphones off, down around his neck. “What do you want?”

She doesn’t know what she wants, really. _He_ wants her to leave him alone, but now that she’s seen him like this, she knows she can’t. She’d wanted to be left alone when she crawled into her hideaway on Xandar, shivering and practically delirious from the pain, and she’s glad he and Nebula had come to take care of her. The idea of leaving him alone in this state is repugnant to her. The urge to help him is nearly overwhelming, as well as the knowledge that she has no idea how. 

So she’s honest. “I want to make sure you’re all right.” 

He snorts and scrubs both hands over his face. Some of the dirt or caked up blood doesn’t move when he touches it, as if it’s fused to his skin. “Well, as you can see, I’m fine. Fucking peachy, even. Never better.”

He’s trembling, she notices. She’s not sure if that’s from cold or pain or exhaustion, or perhaps a combination. He’s wearing the same clothes he’s been wearing all day, which are as dirty and bloody as his face. One of the sleeves is ripped and she can see the abrasions on his skin underneath. One leg of his pants is in the same condition. And that’s just what she can see in the dim light. 

She considers all of that for a moment, and it occurs to her that it doesn’t make much sense. She is accustomed to scarce resources, to being forced to fight others for survival. To making do without basic necessities because the cost of them in Thanos’s manipulation would be far too high. But Quill...He has no reason to keep himself in this condition. The ship is safe and well-stocked. Even if he wanted to be alone, he could have treated his injuries first.

“Do you...want to be in pain?” she guesses, hoping that it isn’t the wrong thing to say, isn’t going to upset him further. She knows about those sort of self-destructive choices too, has been there plenty of times.

Quill huffs out a bitter laugh. “Why the hell would I want that? Nebula tell you I’m into some kind of weird kink shit?”

Gamora arches an eyebrow, surprised by that logical leap. “No. I thought perhaps you might be trying to punish yourself for some reason.” That’s what she would be doing, were she in his position, choosing to be in pain. Then she considers another possibility. “Or perhaps you find the physical pain a useful distraction from emotional discomfort.”

“You don’t know me,” he says, glaring at her. But there’s not much real anger in his voice, or in his eyes; it’s all pain, sadness. So if he means it to come off as an accusation, it doesn’t really work. 

There’s no point in arguing that. She certainly doesn’t know him like the person he wishes she were. But she knows enough to know that he doesn’t deserve to be in pain. He’s a good person. She feels that strongly, knows it like a universal truth. So, though she may not know how to help him emotionally, she can help him physically. 

“I know,” she says evenly. “But I know how to dress a wound. Where do you keep your med supplies?” 

“I don’t need your help,” he says tiredly. He wipes his cheeks almost violently with the back of his hand and sniffles. 

She squares her shoulders, determined. “Well, I am going to give it to you anyway. I’m going to find the med supplies on my own anyway, so you might as well tell me.” 

He continues glaring at her for a few seconds, but when she doesn’t waver, he sighs and leans his head back in the chair, eyes closed. Fresh tears leak from his eyes, not that they ever really stopped. “If I let you put a damn bandage on me, will you go away?” 

“You will require more than one bandage,” she says. “But yes, after I help you, I will leave you alone.” 

He just looks at her, a bit glassy-eyed, for another moment, then pushes himself up to standing with a soft sound of pain. He’s definitely limping, even worse than before, probably feeling the beatings he’s taken in full now. 

“You don’t have to get up,” she says quickly, because just watching this makes her wince. “If you’ll just tell me--”

“It’s down below,” Quill interrupts, pausing for a moment to re-secure the music player to his hip, to make sure that it isn’t going to slip and fall off as he moves.

Gamora finds herself struck by the way he cares more about its well-being than his own right now. She also can’t help thinking again how utterly haggard he looks, how different from the man Nebula keeps describing to her: A bright, sweet, silly fool. A man who loves to dance and sing and goof around. She has seen only small glimpses of those traits thus far, the person in front of her right now so utterly discordant with that description that it seems almost impossible. 

“You can just tell me where,” she insists, as he starts moving again. “I’ll bring it up.”

“Forget it,” he snaps, and drags himself toward the ladder.

All she can do is get ahead of him, suddenly afraid that he’s going to fall and damage himself further. It turns out to be a good thing, because he _does_ stumble when he gets to the bottom, one of his knees trying to buckle. Gamora catches him instinctively with an arm around his waist, pulls one of his arms around her shoulders.

“Were you ever planning on treating this?” she asks, surprised that his state is even worse than she’d thought. Whether it’s from exhaustion or the injury really being that painful, it’s concerning either way. 

“It’s _fine_ ,” he says irritably, though he doesn’t shake off her support. “Why do you care, anyway?” 

“You helped me,” she says simply, though it’s not really that simple. But she doesn’t know how to put words to this concern for his well-being or the confusing desire to take care of him, and she doesn’t think she would utter the words even if she had them. “Now, where is the supply kit?”

He gestures irritably toward the table. “In that cabinet.” 

She looks, sees the cabinet he’s indicating, which is on the other side of the table. It would be foolish to try to grab it while also supporting him, so she’ll need to get him settled first. The table where they’d placed her when they brought her back here is the most obvious choice, but it’s covered in bowls, containers, wrappers, and various spills of questionable age and origins. Apparently no one on this ship cleans up after themselves after meals. She could just dump him into one of the chairs, but they’re not particularly comfortable. Besides, if she’s going to be dressing wounds that are under his clothes, they’re going to need privacy. 

“Let’s go to--this room,” she says, steering him towards the room she’s been sleeping in. 

He freezes immediately, his entire body tense in a way that she hasn’t expected, if only because she wouldn’t have thought he’d have the strength. “No. I am _not_ going in there.”

She frowns, confused, studying him. “Why? You were in there the night that -- The first night that I was -- here. You didn’t seem to have a problem with it then.”

“I said no,” he repeats, his tone all bitter petulance now, the same way it had been when he’d found them around the table earlier, playing the battle game; Contempt and hatred, for her. Such an abrupt switch from the way he was treating her over their dinner, though it’s hardly the first time he’s expressed anger toward her. “I am not going in there with _you._ ”

For a moment her instinctive self-loathing flares, tries to tell her that she is a fool for trying to help him. After all, she is an assassin, Thanos’ greatest weapon. Why would she ever expect him to trust her? To feel safe being alone with her, particularly in this weakened state?

But it isn’t that, she tells herself. He feels no threat from her. He’s made that much consistently obvious, even as his other emotions toward her seem constantly in turmoil. He is resisting because the room she’s suggesting used to be his. Used to be the one he shared with the woman she is not. As if she needed any further reminders.

“Oh, get over it,” says Gamora, suddenly irritated. “What do you think I’m going to do, try to seduce you? I _know_ I am not her. I _know_ you have no attachment to me. I am only attempting to prevent you from killing yourself.”

“That’s not what I--” he sputters, somewhere between flustered and irritated as well. “I didn’t think you were…” He trails off on a frustrated noise, then settles on, “That’s not the point.”

She sighs. This is why she does not do negotiations or diplomacy. She was not trained for things like this. She wishes this was a problem she could stab. “Look, the sooner you shut up and let me help you, the sooner I’ll get out of your way, since that’s obviously what you want. Okay?”

She ignores the way it hurts to say that, though she could tell before. The way he’d been acting before all this, when he’d made her dinner and showed her how to play that game… It’s not like she _wants_ him to be in love with her. She knows she’s not that person, whatever perfect version of herself he did love. But the idea that she _could_ be...or could _have been_...the type of person who was worthy of love held a shameful amount of appeal to her. 

No point in dwelling on that, she tells herself. That’s just not a life she can have. 

Quill looks at her for a while in some inscrutable way, though she can read the pain and anger in his eyes. He seems to deflate after a few seconds. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“Fine,” she echoes, walking with him there, then leaving him by the bed. If his knees buckle again, he should at least land on the mattress. “Take your pants off.” She pauses, well aware of how that probably sounds. “So that I can address your wounds properly.”

Gamora doesn’t give him a chance to respond, goes straight back out into the common area to get the kit. She opens it quickly to check the supplies it contains, then considers what else she might need. The antiseptic and bandages are appropriate, certainly, and there appears to be a good selection of pain medications as well. But he is probably also dehydrated, she thinks, and maybe hypoglycemic as well. That would certainly explain the shaking. She goes back to the refrigerator and grabs a bottle of the electrolyte replacement drink she’d seen earlier. She recalls Nebula telling her that the crew mainly uses it for hangovers, but this is its true intended purpose. Then she stops in the bathroom as well, wetting several cloths. They won’t be a substitute for a real shower, but at least they’ll help remove some of the grime until he’s recovered enough to stand under the water without risk of passing out.

She’s expecting him to be belligerent still when she gets back to the bed where she left him, possibly to be fully clothed and arguing that he can do this himself or not at all. 

Instead she finds him sitting on the edge of the bed, stripped down to his boxer shorts and t-shirt, shivering harder than ever. He looks so utterly vulnerable that it makes her entire being ache.

“What?” he asks, apparently noticing her look. He’s obviously attempting to sound angry but it comes out weak, his teeth nearly chattering, so it only ends up adding to the feeling in her chest. 

She doesn’t reply to that, just holds out the electrolyte bottle towards him. “Drink this.”

“That stuff is disgusting,” he says, but takes it. He seems to have rapidly lost all will to fight her. She’s not sure if that should please her or concern her. 

She sets the kit on the bed next to him, briefly debating what to take care of first. His knee is worrying her, but he’s got some nasty looking gashes and scrapes too. Though really, she’s not going to be able to do anything until she gets that dirt off of him; no point dressing a wound that’s caked up with mud and dried blood. So she grabs one of the washcloths and faces him again. 

Any residual irritation she may have been feeling towards Quill fades immediately when she sees him sitting there, trembling fingers struggling to open the bottle she’d handed him. His face is scrunched up and he makes a frustrated noise when he can’t gather enough strength to twist the cap sufficiently. 

“Let me,” she says, reaching for it.

“I’ve got it,” he snaps, trying and failing again. 

“Peter,” she implores, his first name falling off her tongue without conscious thought. She might not have even realized she’d said it if it weren’t for the way his head suddenly snaps up to look at her in surprise. 

She briefly considers apologizing, but she has the sense somehow that it would only hurt him more if she were to take it back. It would be another reminder that she is not the woman -- or not _yet_ the woman, she allows herself to consider -- who calls him that all of the time. 

For one absurd, distracted moment, she wonders what else she might have called him, whether they had ridiculous pet names for one another, as if any version of her might ever have been or ever be that sort of person. The word _sweetheart_ flits through her mind like an itch, like -- not quite a memory, but something. He had called her that, she remembers, when he’d found her on Xandar, but -- Gamora shakes herself. She would never say that word, especially not to him. 

“Trade me,” she says instead, holding out one of the cloths and reaching for the bottle. “I will open that, you clean your face.”

He sighs, but he doesn’t fight her, handing the bottle over silently this time and taking the cloth. He wipes his face quickly at first, then a bit more thoroughly, hissing through his teeth as he cleans the cut on his temple. That makes the wound look fresher, makes it start to slowly bleed again, but he still looks better overall.

“Trade again,” she says, and they switch, so now she’s got the cloth and he’s got the bottle. He takes a big swig from it without her having to direct him, though he makes a face at the taste. 

“I really hate this stuff,” he mutters. 

“Perhaps you should have eaten something today, then,” she says as she begins cleaning the areas of his face he missed, most notably along his hairline. 

“When’s the last time _you_ ate?” he asks petulantly. 

“Irrelevant,” she says. “I don’t need to eat or drink as much as a Terran.” 

“I--” he begins, then cuts himself off. She doesn’t push him, focusing on her task, as if getting the dirt off his face is going to heal him. 

She’s nearly done when she notices the way his hand is clenched around the bottle, his knuckles white. His arm is still trembling. 

“Am I hurting you?” she asks, pulling the cloth back, suddenly afraid. Surely he’d tell her to stop if she were; though this is the man who was apparently going to leave all of his wounds untreated and filthy. 

“No,” he says. His voice is rough and she’s not sure she believes him, but again she doesn’t push him. 

“Tilt your head back so I can clean your neck,” she says, and to her surprise he obeys immediately. She’d been expecting to have to fight him on every step of this, but so far he’s been a lot more cooperative than he was up in the cockpit. 

As she touches the cloth to his neck, it strikes her what a show of trust this is on his part. He’s exposing one of the most vulnerable parts of his body to her, an assassin. He’s got no weapons on him. It would be so easy for her to kill him, but he’s showing no fear. 

She finds herself captivated as she takes him in again, listens to his heartbeat, still quick even as he sits here, utterly unafraid. Some of it is probably the dehydration, she thinks. But some of it is also probably...Well, she isn’t going to presume to name the emotions he’s feeling. But she has the sense that his emotions are running as high as her own right now. As she finishes the cleaning, she finds herself holding the cloth limply in one hand, the other pressed against the skin of his neck, her fingers resting over the spot where his pulse is beating.

“Gamora?” he asks after a moment that seems to stretch into an eternity, his voice soft, uncertain. 

She snatches her hand back and clears her throat, her own heart beating faster. “You should drink more. And we should clean your arms next.”

“Right,” he agrees, taking another swig from the bottle and grimacing again, as though the unpleasant taste is a surprise every time.

Gamora shakes her head a bit. “Is there something else I should get for you to eat or drink?”

“No,” he says quickly, drinking again and wrinkling his nose again. “Nope, this is fine.”

She picks up a new cloth and begins cleaning the arm he isn’t using to lift the bottle to his lips. “I would return the favor of distracting you with stories, but I believe you already know them all better than I do.”

“You--she didn’t tell me everything,” he mutters. His face contorts, squeezing his eyes shut, clearly in pain. He doesn’t have any injuries on the arm she’s cleaning, so she knows it’s not from that. 

“What do you mean?” she asks, but he’s already shaking his head. 

“Nothing,” he says quickly, attempting to arrange his face into a neutral expression. “Nevermind.”

If he doesn’t want to talk about it, she’s not going to try to make him, though she’s curious. But that was not really her, she reminds herself, in whatever memory he’s agonizing over, so it’s none of her business. So she just nods and moves to his other side, ignoring the fresh tears he’s ducking his head to try to hide. 

She winces when she sees the state of this arm up close. This is the injured one, the side he must have landed on at some point in the fight. The skin of this arm is torn up, scrapes and gashes all caked with dirt and dried up blood. His leg is in a similar state. 

“Hand me a fresh wash cloth,” she says, though she could grab it herself. He could use any sort of distraction, she figures. 

He obeys, still avoiding looking at her. 

“This is going to hurt,” she tells him in warning. He nods, his grip on the bottle tightening again. 

Gamora sets her own jaw as she begins cleaning his arm, hating the idea of causing him pain. That is the last thing she wants to do to him, and somehow all she seems capable of doing. She wonders whether her counterpart hurt him like this, then decides that’s impossible. This is a deficiency unique to her.

She thinks he might cry out as she gets to the most injured parts of his arm, thinks that he probably _will_ shed more tears based on what she’s seen of him so far. He seems to have a penchant for that, like it’s one of his default responses, which nobody has ever trained out of him. 

He doesn’t, though. She knows that he’s feeling the pain because his body tenses under her hands, because she can see him gritting his teeth and hear his intake of breath. But he doesn’t make a sound, is more stoic than she would ever have thought possible from him.

“When I was a child,” says Gamora, because she feels the need to offer him _something_ , even if it isn’t new, “Nebula and I would sometimes dress each other’s wounds when we were injured in training or battle. But eventually -- Thanos put a stop to that.”

He predictably doesn’t seem surprised by that information. “I’m glad that bastard is dead,” he says, an edge of savage satisfaction in his voice, but otherwise he sounds mostly...tired. Hollow. A hollow victory, she supposes. 

She almost echoes his sentiment but she can’t seem to make herself say the words, though she knows it to be true, and she _is_ glad that he’s gone, immeasurably glad. But there’s that shameful part of her she doesn’t like to acknowledge that feels guilty too; guilty that she helped destroy him, guilty that she’s happy about it. It’s a confusing swirl of emotions she’s been doing her best to ignore. And really, with all the other confusing things happening to her, it hasn’t been that difficult. 

“I had to dress my own wounds after that,” she continues instead, once again shoving all that down. “Though the modifications he gave me make it so that I rarely have need to.”

“I know,” Peter says. He doesn’t sound unkind or annoyed--at least not any more than he has all day--by the repeated information, but it irritates her nonetheless. 

“I _know_ you know,” she says on a sigh. “But _I_ didn’t tell you.”

She can feel his eyes on her but she ignores him, cleaning the rest of his arm in silence. She’s moved onto his injured leg, crouching down next to him, by the time he responds. 

“Sorry,” he says so quietly she might not have heard if it weren’t for her enhanced senses. 

Gamora freezes at the word, looking up at him. He’s avoiding her gaze now, looking studiously at the wall in front of him. It’s almost a relief -- She doesn’t know what to do with his apology anyway. She is accustomed to eliciting strong reactions from those around her -- usually fear or anger. Sometimes people beg for mercy in her presence. But apologies -- Those are not directed at her, at least not in this sense. No one is ever sorry for the way they have behaved toward her. Shaking herself, she resumes cleaning his wounds. She is making too much of that single word that he probably didn’t even intend for her to hear. 

“I don’t -- exactly have the best track record with taking care of wounds either,” he says finally, as she finishes up with the cleaning and moves on to antibacterial salve from the kit. 

She starts from his leg this time, mostly so that she doesn’t have to look up at his face just yet. She isn’t sure what she’s expecting to see there, but it unnerves her all the same. “You mean this is your usual?”

“Well--” He breaks off, seems to consider for a second, then makes a decision about continuing. “The Ravagers didn’t exactly teach me good first-aid, you know? Their version was basically pour booze over a wound, then drink some until you couldn’t feel the pain anymore. Even when I was a kid. Then they’d make fun of me when I’d get sick from drinking.”

Gamora winces. “That sounds cruel.”

“Yeah, they were a buncha-- _dicks_!” He yelps the last word, his leg jerking as she applies the salve to the deepest part of his wound. 

“Sorry!” she says hastily, removing her hand. “I should have warned you.” She curses herself; she’d known it would probably sting him, but she thought perhaps he was distracted enough, that warning him would only make it worse. Obviously she was wrong. 

“It’s okay,” he says, face contorted. “I know it hurts. It just--surprised me. I’m fine.”

The pain in his voice seems to contradict that, so the words do nothing to make her feel less guilty. “I have to keep going,” she says, feeling bad but knowing she can’t stop now. It hurts because it’s working. 

“I know, I know,” he says, eyes still squeezed shut. “Go ahead.” 

She does, working as quickly and efficiently as she can. There’s a question on the tip of her tongue she tries to hold back, knowing she’s already hurt him, but for some reason there’s a compulsion within her she can’t ignore, so she can’t help but ask, “Did the other Gamora do this for you?”

His body somehow tenses even more than it already was, practically freezing in place. She’s about to try to take the question back when he responds, a very quiet, pained, “Yes.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to do it now?” she asks. She pauses in her work, wondering whether she ought to stop altogether, whether she ought to offer to let him finish it himself. Though he doesn’t exactly seem to be in a state to do that. Still, if he’s going to see it as some sort of violation…

“What?” He actually sounds surprised by that question, and it’s written all over his face too when she finally forces herself to look. “I didn’t -- I don’t --”

“You weren’t taking care of your own wounds,” she reminds him. “And when I offered, you argued against it. Is that because you wanted to avoid the reminder that _she_ is not here to do it for you? That I am -- not her?”

He shakes his head, takes a very rough breath. “I didn’t -- _not_ want you to do it.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow. “Well you put on a very convincing act, then.”

He sighs, scrubs a hand through his hair, which makes it stick up, a further reminder of the fact that he still very much needs a real shower. “I know. I know I’m -- I _did_ want you to do it, okay? That’s why I tried to say no.”

She considers that, considers all of his behavior toward her over the past few days. The way he’s been hot and cold by turns. She also thinks about what she’s heard Rocket say, when he’s been angry. “You don’t want me to replace her.”

“It’s not that I--” he starts, then cuts himself off. She can see his throat work as he swallows. She gives him time to gather himself by sticking a bandage on his thigh, where it molds seamlessly to his skin over the wounds. 

“Yeah, it’s kinda that,” Peter says in a rough voice at last, once she’s already stood up and moved onto putting salve on his arm. “I know...you’re Gamora. So you’re kind of her but you’re also--not. And I don’t wanna…” He cuts himself off again, his face scrunching up, breath trembling. 

“I know I’m not her,” Gamora says softly, since it doesn’t seem like he’s going to continue this time. “I’m not trying to replace her. I just want to help.”

He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t seem to be able to, but he does nod. He’s crying again; he never really stopped, but his tears are flowing a little faster. Still, he seems to be trying to stop them, face contorted, biting his lip. So she pretends not to see, concentrating on tending to his arm. 

“This is going to hurt,” she says quietly, as she reaches a particularly nasty-looking wound. 

He nods, head bowed. He tenses a bit when she puts the salve there, but he’s so tense already she can hardly tell. 

She’s in the process of bandaging these wounds when he says, “I’m sorry.”

“You already said that,” she reminds him, not unkindly. 

“No, I--” He takes an extremely shaky breath, his shoulders actually moving with it. He tries again, but he’s having trouble getting words out, can only manage, “I’m really--” before he trails off on a sob. 

Gamora has no idea what to do with that. He hiccups on his next breath, forces himself to take another large drink from the bottle in his hand, and gags on it for a long moment before finally managing to swallow. There are still tears leaking from his eyes, but he seems to have tamped down the sobs for now and he’s not attempting to say anything else. So she goes back to bandaging his wounds, finishing with his arm. 

That leaves only the one on his temple, and she hesitates for another moment before finally deciding that it needs her attention. It’s still bleeding slowly, after all. She brushes a fingertip lightly against the underside of his chin. “Tilt your head back for me?”

He sniffles, then does as she’s asked. The tear tracks on his cheek catch the dim light as he does, and before she even thinks about it, she finds herself wiping them away with her thumbs. He doesn’t quite flinch at the contact, but he catches his breath, makes a guttural sound deep in the back of his throat.

“Sorry,” breathes Gamora, and busies herself working on the temple wound.

“I can’t stop dreaming about her,” he admits abruptly.

She doesn’t quite know what to say to that sudden admission, but she’s glad he’s saying _something_ , senses that he needs to talk. “Dreams are difficult to control,” she says, deciding not to say _impossible_ , though she’s never had any luck stopping the nightmares that have plagued her for most of her life. 

“I dreamed she said I had replaced her,” he says, the words seeming to tumble out, along with more tears. She lets them, restraining the wild urge to wipe them away, instead focusing on his cut. 

“Is that why you were behaving--differently yesterday?” she asks, as it begins to make sense. 

He sighs, an unsteady thing, and his face scrunches up so much she has trouble getting the salve on the rest of his cut. His tears start falling faster again. She’s afraid that perhaps she was wrong, or perhaps that was the wrong thing to _say_ anyway, and is trying to come up with another topic, something to distract him, when he ducks his head with a curse. 

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, burying his face in his hands, the bottle dropping to the floor. She can hardly understand him through the sobs that have taken over. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

Gamora freezes, her heart aching for him all over again. He’s apologizing to her, she recognizes on some level, and in truth he probably does owe it to her with the way he’s been acting. She doesn’t care about that right now, though, is too overwhelmed by that instinctive urge to help him somehow, torn in the knowledge that she is utterly incapable. 

She considers telling him that she isn’t finished bandaging his face, that he needs to calm down and raise his head long enough for her to finish. That feels heartless, though, and at least the salve should control the bleeding until she can fully cover the cut. She can’t simply move on with her task, can’t ignore his anguish. That would be far too much like Thanos. Like what Thanos tried to make her.

Instead she thinks of Nebula, of the softness she is beginning to see in her sister. Of the affection she claims to have learned from Gamora’s...counterpart. She is not that person, her mind insists, yet her instincts --

Sucking in a breath, Gamora carefully closes the kit and moves it off of the bed. Peter still has his head buried, doesn’t do anything to deter her. So she sinks down onto the mattress beside him, hesitates only another single instant before resting her palm against the flat of his back.

He stiffens for just a second before relaxing slightly, which encourages her enough to start slowly moving her hand up and down, rubbing his back. It feels awkward, but also somehow strangely familiar; perhaps her mother did this for her when she was young, in a memory that’s faded so much it’s nothing more than a feeling now. 

It seems to encourage him to talk more, which he obviously needs, though his crying hasn’t slowed. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m an asshole, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” she says softly. “And it’s okay. I’m not angry.” 

“You should be,” he sobs. “It’s not your fault that she--that you--” He shakes his head, cries a little harder. 

She feels like she’s not doing enough, which isn’t a surprise. She’s not a warm type of person, doesn’t know how to offer him the sort of comfort he needs right now. The other her obviously could have. The other Gamora seemed to have been better than her in every way. 

She thinks of Nebula again, of what she learned from that version; she remembers the hug, how nice it had felt. Moving slowly and tentatively so that he has a chance to pull away, she puts her arm around Peter’s shoulders. 

That makes him cry even more, which she hadn’t thought possible, but at the same time he does untense a bit, might even lean into her slightly. So she keeps her arm there, only feeling a little awkward. 

“I am sorry too,” says Gamora. “I’m sorry I don’t know how to do this. I am not -- good at taking care of people.”

He huffs out a laugh, a strangled sound that takes her a moment to recognize through his tears. She can feel the way his shoulders shake with it, though, the way it rumbles through him differently than the sobs. It’s an odd sensation, being so close to another person, being so intimately aware of him. But it isn’t a bad one, no matter what the deeply-ingrained voice of Thanos is trying to whisper from inside of her own head.

“What?” she asks. “I don’t. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

He shakes his head, laughing again, though it’s mingled with tears in a way that makes it sound fairly hysterical. “I know. I _know_. It’s just -- She -- _you_ \-- used to say that all the time. Especially at first. You’d always say you didn’t know how, but you were great at it.” He sniffles, finally lifts his face out of his hands a bit. “You’re still great at it, Gamora.”

“I dreamed of you too,” she admits, because she doesn’t know what to do with that information, particularly the compliment at the end of it. It feels like a trap, if an unintentional one, so she chooses to side-step. “You asked me to kill you.”

He winces, face still half-hidden behind his hands. “Because I was such an asshole?”

“What?” she asks, thrown. “No--this was before, it’s not because… I didn’t _want_ to kill you. You wanted me to kill you because you were in so much pain. Because _I_ was causing you so much pain, you’d have rather been dead.”

“It’s not--it’s really not your fault,” he says, finally lifting his face all the way. He’s calmed down enough that his breathing is at least under control. As he sits up a little straighter, Gamora lets her arm slip from around his shoulders, but keeps her hand resting on his back, wanting to continue to support him in some way. “Honestly, if you _weren’t_ here, if there was no more… _you_ in the universe at all...I don’t know what kind of state I’d be in.” 

“You think having me here is _helping_ you?” she asks, surprised. 

“Yeah, god, I--” He sighs, wiping the tears off his face roughly. New ones fall to replace them. “Really, Gamora, it is. I don’t want you to think I don’t like you, or don’t want you here. I just...didn’t _want_ to like you, or want you here. It feels like betraying...you.”

“I like this Nebula,” Gamora says. “Does that mean I am betraying mine? The one I lost?” 

“Of course not!” he says immediately. His expression turns sheepish belatedly, emotions apparently running so high that it takes his reasoning a moment to catch up. “I see your point. I do. But I can’t just -- _god_ it would be so easy to pretend it never happened, that I never lost you, or -- or that you came back with the rest of us.” He breaks off, guilt clear in his eyes, just at having those thoughts.

Gamora frowns. “No, it wouldn’t. At least -- I don’t think it would be easy for you. Granted, I don’t know you very well.”

“No?” He looks surprised, and oddly -- hopeful? Maybe. She doesn’t trust her ability to read him yet. “Are you gonna say because you’re different from her? Because that’s not -- You’re really, _really_ not. I know you’re not gonna believe me because she -- _you_ wouldn’t have then either. But it’s true.”

Gamora shakes her head and refuses to acknowledge the part of her that _is_ starting to think about believing him. That wants to, at least, though the mere idea of it feels terribly dangerous. “No. Because it _did_ happen. Like Nova Prime said. It happened to you and to her and to me. And it changed all of us. You don’t strike me as the sort of person who just forgets big things that happen to people you love.”

“I guess not,” he says, with the slightest smile. It falls quickly as he admits with that same edge of shame and guilt in his voice, “I almost wish I could.” 

“You want it to hurt less,” Gamora says simply. “That is nothing to feel guilty about. We all want things to hurt less.” Though she’d long since stopped wishing for it, at least consciously. But now here she is, in a universe without Thanos, with people who… She stops that thought in its tracks. Wishing is for people like Peter, people who deserve to have good things happen to them. 

Still, something warms in her chest when his smile returns, a little bigger and longer lasting this time. “See? You’re good at this.”

She shakes her head; he gives her too much credit. “I am only telling you things that are true.”

“You sell yourself short,” he says knowingly. “Not that that should surprise me. You always did. Do.” He sniffles and wipes his face again. His tears have slowed, falling at a more manageable pace, his body no longer wracked with sobs. She doesn’t know what to do with the compliments or the admiration in his voice, so she decides to get back to something she does know how to do. 

“Here,” she says, standing and picking up the replenishing drink he’d dropped. “Drink more so I can finish this.” 

His smile grows a bit more at that, becoming a bit crooked though she doesn't understand why. She's ignored his compliments, ordered him to continue with actions he clearly finds unpleasant. But all he does is snap her a tiny salute before unscrewing the bottle cap again. "Yes ma'am."

She waits while he takes another swig, winces, then tilts his head back without her having to ask again. She picks the kit back up and opens it on the bed, getting back to her feet. He's tall enough that this puts his forehead at her chest level, even with him sitting down. 

"Were you accustomed to my counterpart giving you orders?" she asks, though she keeps her tone light. She's fairly certain he was being playful, but she still has to know. She strongly dislikes the thought that their relationship might have been built on such an imbalance of power, that any version of her might have taken such advantage of his gentleness, his inherent vulnerability. Then again, some people like that, she knows. 

He laughs softly, though. "Nah, you didn't have to. I would've done anything for you." There's a darkness that falls over his face then that she can't read, though, and she busies herself with the cut. 

“There,” she says quietly when she’s done, when she’s smoothed the bandage over his cut perhaps a bit more than necessary. She takes a step back, only realizing as she does exactly how close she’d been standing. 

He clears his throat, fiddling with the bottle instead of looking directly at her. She wonders if he just realized that too. “Thanks. I mean, really. You didn’t have to do this. Especially after I was such a jerk to you all day.”

“You didn’t have to find me on Xandar,” she points out. “Or help me recover when my mod malfunctioned. Or let me stay here, or any of the other things you’ve done for me. I wasn’t exactly--kind to you on first meeting.” 

He snorts. “Hey, that was fitting, though. You missed the-- _other_ first time, so you had to get ‘em for real this time.”

She allows herself a small smile, remembering what he’d told her of his first meeting with the other Gamora. 

“I do want you to stay though,” he says, more seriously. “You believe me, don’t you? Me being an ass today--I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes,” she admits. “I believe you.” She doesn’t believe she deserves it, or that she deserves _any_ of this, really, but she believes that he thinks she does. He sees enough of the other Gamora in her, she supposes. 

“Good,” he says. He swipes the back of his hand over his cheeks and stands up, a little unsteady. “I’ll, uh, get out of your way then.”

"Wait," says Gamora, catching his hand. She intends to steady him, to tell him that he really ought to take something for the inevitable inflammation and pain. That probably she should wrap his knee in something sturdier than gauze or else it's going to give out again and then maybe--

"What?" he asks softly, the word barely more than a breath, a single syllable that's somehow so vulnerable it makes her chest clench again. 

Suddenly she can't think of anything to say, all of the practical considerations she was about to mention feeling utterly incongruous with the barely-controlled emotion in his gaze. So instead she laces their fingers, rests her other hand against the back of his and squeezes gently, as though that might do anything at all against the immense pain she knows he's feeling. 

"What?" he repeats after a moment, a bit louder. He swallows and she can see his throat working, is mesmerized by it for a few breaths. 

She shakes her head. "Just -- don't go back up to the cockpit. You need rest, and this is supposed to be your bed."

“No, no, it’s not,” Peter says, though it sounds more like he’s asking for it not to be true than telling her it’s not. She can feel his hand tremble slightly where she holds it, but he doesn’t pull away. He might squeeze hers a bit tighter, even. “Not without… It’s not mine anymore. It’s yours, really. I want you to have it.”

“I don’t need any more sleep,” she says, which is true; she already got more than usual, despite the fact that it’s still not quite the beginning of the ship’s day cycle yet. Peter, she suspects -- _knows_ \-- did not. Getting him to sleep here has become important to her for some reason she can’t really explain even to herself, beyond an almost intrinsic knowledge that he needs someone to push him to take care of himself or he’ll never do it on his own. “But you do. Did you get _any_?”

“Not today,” he admits. “But--”

“And here you can have privacy,” she points out. “So the others can’t come by and wake you, or tease you.” Which she is aware is done with good will, or so Nebula had explained to her, but which she feels strangely protective about nonetheless. Which is absurd, as the rest of them know Peter much better than she does. 

“I don’t care when they tease me,” he says immediately, but it’s too quick, not sincere. He sighs, still not pulling his hands away. “Well, most of the time I don’t. Lately things are just -- kinda raw, you know?”

“I do,” she says earnestly, though she’s certain that her particular experience of it is different than his, even though they might be...parallel, of sorts. Still… “You gave me this room as a sanctuary, didn’t you?”

The corner of his lip curls upward just a bit. “Yeah. Well, not like the ship. I know you didn’t find that exactly...comfortable.”

She shakes her head. “No. Small ‘s.’ No Thanos.”

“No Thanos ever,” says Peter, and she can’t quite suppress the shudder that comes with hearing those words, realizing for the millionth time that they’re true.

“No,” she agrees, though it still sends a thrill of fear through her to say it. “But -- what you gave me with this space is -- It has been so helpful. I want to give some of it back to you now. You need it, Peter.”

He looks at her for a while, in a way she thinks is considering. “Okay,” he says, barely more than a whisper. It doesn’t particularly surprise her that he’s acquiesced, but she feels relieved nonetheless. 

Briefly, she thinks about what he’d said before, about _I’d have done anything for you_ ; she wonders if he said yes because she is Gamora, albeit not the same as _his_ Gamora. But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he said yes and he is going to get some sleep. Whatever gets him to take care of himself. 

“Good,” she says, when she realizes neither of them have spoken for a beat. “Do you need anything else?”

He shakes his head. “Are you gonna, um…” He stops himself, then looks awkwardly down at their hands. She thinks maybe he wants her to let go. But if he really wanted that, he could let go just as easily, yet he does not. 

Then it occurs to her that maybe he really _doesn’t_ want her to let go. 

“I could stay here,” she offers. She quickly realizes how that might sound and adds, “In the room.”

“If--if you want to,” he says, with a casual shrug she doesn’t buy. He’s still looking at their hands, though she thinks he’s trying to hide it. Despite wanting privacy, he doesn’t seem to want to be alone right now. 

She nods. “Well, I would not want to disturb the others before the day cycle starts.”

He shakes his head. “Oh, they won’t be awake until at least the middle of the day.” He pauses, then adds, “Well, Nebula might be.”

“I’ll stay here,” she repeats. “Though you should feel free to tell me to leave at any point if you change your mind.”

“I won’t,” says Peter. Then he seems to think better of it and clears his throat. “I mean, I _would_ tell you if I did change my mind. I swear, I would. But I’m not gonna change it.”

“Okay,” says Gamora, and then finds herself without anything else at all to say. She’s still acutely aware of their hands -- no, _more_ acutely aware than ever.

“Okay,” he echoes, nodding. 

“Okay,” she repeats, then takes a breath and forces herself to finally let go. He exhales in a rush when she does, and she can’t tell whether it’s disappointment or relief. Possibly a combination of both. She is glad that she’s finally done it, though, even if there’s a small part of her that misses the contact. She doesn’t want to give him the wrong idea, after all. She _knows_ that he doesn’t love _her_.

“Now,” she says, trying to sound firm, and not like there’s a turmoil of conflicting emotions happening inside her. She points to the bottle he’s holding in his hand -- his other hand, the one she wasn’t holding for a truly inappropriate amount of time. “Finish that.” She re-opens the medical kit on the bed and shakes out a pill from the bottle of painkillers. “Take this. Then get some sleep.”

He’s got that smile back when she drops the pill into his palm, and he says, “Yes, ma’am,” in that way he does; only to her, it seems. Then he pops the pill in his mouth and tosses back the rest of the drink to chase it down. 

“Thank you,” she says, though it strikes her after that it might be weird to thank him for doing something that benefits himself. But still, she is grateful. 

“Anytime,” he says, still with that smile. He sinks back down onto the edge of the bed, and then something else strikes her: it’s going to be even weirder if she has nothing to do but watch him sleep. 

“There is something I wanted to ask you,” she says. He raises his eyebrows in an invitation to continue. “I found a holo that...is coded to my biometrics. Would it be all right if I used it?” 

“Oh,” says Peter, looking as though that thought has struck him in the chest. “The one that was -- yours.” That’s not exactly a surprise, she knows why it’s in this room, why it reads her biometrics. She almost went ahead with using it, but it had seemed a violation, somehow. Not just of her dead counterpart, but of him somehow as well.

“Yes,” says Gamora. “I wanted to check with you first. I was just thinking I might use it to -- catch up. Since I am missing nearly a decade.”

He takes a breath, blows it out. She can almost see the thoughts running through his mind, his decision to make himself all right with this. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Just -- there might be pictures and stuff on it, okay? Of -- us. Fair warning.” 

He stretches out on the bed, rests his head on the pillow, then makes a sound that she thinks is not quite pain, but clearly...something. Something intense, and vulnerable. That same _thing_ she hasn’t been able to put a name to all night. No, not just all night. Since she met him.

“What?” she asks, because she can’t just _not_ , even if he is supposed to be going to sleep.

“Just smells like--” He cuts himself off, scrubs a hand over his face, missing the bandages by some small miracle. “Nope. Nope, there’s no way to say that without being totally weird. Nothing. Good night.”

He curls up on his side facing away from her, for which she’s grateful; there’s no mistaking what he’d been about to say, but she tries to push that out of her mind, like he’s obviously trying to do.

She grabs the holo from the closet where she’d found it, then sits on the floor next to the door, back against the wall. She’s so close to the bed still that she has to keep her knees bent or else her feet touch the edge of it, but this is the place she can have the most room and still have him facing away from her. She’s having a hard enough time not staring at his back, it would no doubt be much harder if she could see his face. 

Eventually she forces her eyes down to the holo, hoping that will distract her from thoughts of how his back looks strong but vulnerable at the same time, the way he’s curled up like that. The holo recognizes her as soon as it turns on, has already scanned her face. It just prompts her for a fingerprint, so she touches the tip of her finger to it and it opens up to the home screen. The sight she’s greeted with nearly makes her gasp aloud. 

It’s a picture of the two of them, of Peter and--not her, but the other her. Other Gamora. His Gamora. 

He’s got his arms around her and he’s kissing her cheek, in a way that’s clearly exaggerated for the camera. She can still see the smile on his lips even though they’re pressed to her cheek. It doesn’t take much for her to believe he’d be that open and affectionate. What surprises her, though, is how open and affectionate _she_ looks. How _happy_. Her smile is wide, caught in a laugh, and the way she’s looking at him… Gamora, the one she is _now_ , cannot imagine being this _loving_ , but there’s the evidence right there that she--that some version of her--could be. That she was. 

She shuts the holo off with an almost violent jab to the button and holds her hands off it, as if it’s burned her. Her heart is absolutely racing, as if she’s just run a training sim for six hours rather than sat on the floor for five minutes. She squeezes her eyes shut and resolves to just stay like this until Peter wakes up; that's the only way she’s going to have any hope of shutting this out. 

Already she knows it’s going to be impossible.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented on the last chapter!!!! We appreciate you!! <333

He probably ought to be feeling worse, all things considered.

True, he’s got half a dozen bandages on -- and they’ve _stayed_ on even through his luxuriously long shower, thanks to Gamora’s thorough application. But the analgesic in them seems to be working well, and so far none of the cuts have decided to open up and start bleeding again. 

True, his head is still throbbing dully every time his last painkiller wears off, and he gets a bit dizzy if he changes position too quickly. But it’s far from the worst concussion he’s ever had. He can think clearly with this one and everything.

And, true, his tailbone is still pretty damn sore, his ass protesting every time he tries to sit in one position for more than about an hour. But...honestly that’s about as funny as it is uncomfortable. He doesn’t even mind the jokes from the others about breaking his ass.

Overall, it’s been a pretty good day. He’s managed to sleep through half of it without any horrible dreams, gotten a change of clothes before leaving the captain’s quarters again. But more than anything else, the haze of anger that’s been surrounding him for the past few days is gone, the last of the bitterness washed down the drain along with the mud from Liri IV. He still feels raw in more ways than one, but...lighter somehow. For the first time since Titan, there’s no nagging voice in the back of his head reminding him that it would be easier if he didn’t exist.

That’s not to say he feels great, but he at least feels not terrible enough to allow the others to drag him out to a bar that night when they stop on the planet Ianide. Of course, that might have more to do with the fact that Gamora has come along this time as well than anything to do with his mood. Although, his change in mood is because of her too, and he’s still grateful, especially considering how terribly he treated her before. She’s still got that inherent Gamora _goodness_ he always admired about her. He’d meant what he said to her before: the fact that she still exists in some form, even if she’s not _his_ , is the only thing keeping him together. 

“I thought we were on this planet for supplies,” she says, watching Drax drain a cup full of bright blue liquid all in one go. 

“We are supplying our bodies with alcohol!” Drax says, far too loudly considering he’s sitting right across from her. “I would like another!” 

His voice carries enough to attract the attention of a passing waiter--a robot, like all of the waitstaff in this bar--that obligingly hands him another. 

“Thank you!” he says, drinking only half of it this time. 

“Hey scrap metal!” Rocket calls to the wait-bot. “What’s it gonna take for the rest of us to get some service?”

Peter winces inwardly, though he’s aware that these bots are programmed for customer service and probably get much worse treatment than this on a regular basis. Still, it seems a bit unfair. They’ve only been here for a few minutes, and Drax has monopolized most of those far too much for anyone else to even attempt to order.

“Someone will be with you momentarily,” the bot says in an unsettlingly artificial tone. 

“You’re here now,” Rocket points out. 

“My protocol is for drinks only,” says the bot. “And I must prioritize other tables.”

“Fine,” says Rocket. “Then bring me a flargin’ drink!”

“Oh me too!” says Drax, downing the rest of his and holding out his empty glass.

The bot’s expression doesn’t actually change, of course -- these models aren’t sophisticated enough for that, and they don’t really need it either -- but he could almost swear that somewhere in its programming, it’s rolling its eyes and sighing. Still, it puts two more glasses full of the blue stuff down on the table, not bothering to ask anything about preferences. 

“You gonna drink with us, Quill?” asks Rocket, which makes the robot pause yet again. 

He hesitates, glancing at Gamora who’s sitting next to him. He hadn’t wanted to originally, and he knows she won’t. Then again, maybe she _will_ ; it’s not like he knows her as well as--

_No_ , he’s not gonna go there. She _is_ Gamora, even though she’s different. He’s got to stop thinking like this, it’s not fair to her, even if she’s not--

“Definitely gonna drink,” he says, turning back to the bot determinedly. A little alcohol might go a long way towards helping him with this whole _not thinking_ thing. 

“Me too!” Mantis says enthusiastically. 

“I’m gonna need something strong if I’m gonna be surrounded by you all,” Nebula says dryly. 

Groot ignores them all in favor of his game. He is thankfully pretty indifferent to alcohol, probably because they’d let him try some when he was younger and he’d promptly thrown it up in disgust. Peter’s not even sure it would affect him, honestly, besides just finding it icky. 

“No, thank you,” Gamora says stiffly, when the bot looks at her. It does that thing where Peter’s pretty sure it’s somehow rolling its eyes, then sets down the appropriate amount of drinks and hurries away before they can ask for anything else. 

Peter takes a big drink of his and shudders at how strong it tastes. He hasn’t done nearly as much drinking in the past few years as he used to. Or maybe the drink really is just that strong. 

“You goin’ soft, Quill?” Rocket goads, taking a cavalier swig of his own drink. He has no such reaction, unsurprisingly, though Peter’s pretty sure he’s stubborn enough that he wouldn’t have reacted even if he’d taken a drink of pure acid.

“Quill has always been soft,” says Drax, already halfway through his newest drink, “if we are speaking of Terran physiology!”

“Or emotions!” Mantis chimes in. “His emotions are very soft as well! It is an excellent trait and I like it very much.”

Peter sighs, torn between annoyance and affection for them. There’s a non-zero part of him that wishes they wouldn’t have conversations like this in front of Gamora. Then again, this is so quintessentially _them_. It’s not like they weren’t this way before, when…

He takes another deliberately large swallow of his drink and forces himself to grin triumphantly at Rocket even though his entire mouth and throat are burning. “Not as soft as Thor.”

“True!” says Rocket, then raises his glass in a mock toast as the others laugh uproariously. 

Peter has a moment of guilt about that. He doesn’t much like Thor, but it was more than clear that the guy hasn’t been doing well. Seems to be a lot of that going around.

“They certainly don’t treat you like a captain,” Gamora murmurs. Peter opens his mouth to protest, to defend himself, when she adds, “I don’t like that they’re cruel to you.”

“Oh,” he breathes, something distinctly vulnerable constricting his chest at that. He glances around to see if any of the others heard, but they’re all occupied with their drinks and laughter. Nebula might have, as she’s sitting on Gamora’s other side in the round booth they’re in and her hearing is probably just as good as her sister’s. He finds himself not caring so much if she did. 

“They mostly don’t mean it,” he says as quietly as possible, basically mumbling it into his drink. He knows she’ll hear. “It’s just...how we are.”

“ _You_ are not cruel to them,” she whispers. 

He looks at her, the way she’s looking at him so earnestly, unused to the way this team operates, upset on his behalf despite how he treated her yesterday. Which, really, was probably the definition of cruel. “Sometimes I am.”

“If the dynamic works for you, I suppose,” she says with a shake of her head, looking around at the others. “But I do not like it.”

He can’t help but smile a little, though he tries to hide it behind his drink. She is just being so _Gamora_. Even this stiffness at the bar, the suspicious way she’s looking at all their drinks, is reminding him so much of Gamora when they first met...the first time. His Gamora. 

“You know,” he says, a little louder but still only meant for her. “This is way nicer than the bars we used to go to.”

She looks unimpressed by this standard. “Really?”

“Yeah!” he says, waving his hand around. “They’ve got tables and food and stuff.”

“That is quite a low bar,” she says.

“Hey, nice pun,” Peter says with a snort, though from the look on her face it was unintentional. 

"It is a very high bar!" says Drax, pointing. 

The bar itself is, in fact, fairly tall. Peter thinks it would probably come up to his chest were he standing at it. Which makes sense, really, considering the size of this planet's native races. 

"Not that bar," says Nebula, though Peter knows she is more than familiar enough with Drax to understand how he's interpreted the conversation. She's probably doing this just to mess with him. Which is a big improvement over the sadism Thanos cultivated in her. "The figurative one. You know, the one you all set with the sketchy establishments you've frequented."

"Those bars were indeed lower," Drax agrees charitably. 

Mantis giggles, then hiccups, then giggles even harder. Drax lifts his now-empty glass in a toast to her, laughing uproariously too.

Peter turns back to Gamora, about to apologize on their behalf, to remind her that they really do have a lot of good redeeming qualities. But it turns out he doesn't need to, because she's smiling-- small and tentative, but unmistakable. Apparently this brand of teasing is more to her taste. 

“Hey!” Rocket shouts, and Peter winces as he realizes it’s directed at another approaching wait-bot. “Hey, c’mere!”

“You know,” Peter says tiredly, “since this is a nicer place than we usually go to, you could try to act a little less like a barbarian.”

Rocket belches loudly, deliberately, which makes Mantis and Drax laugh; Gamora and Nebula wrinkle their noses in disgust. Like, in unison. It’s kind of cute. 

“Would you like to order?” The wait-bot asks tonelessly.

“We’ve wanted to order the whole damn time we’ve been here,” Rocket grumbles. Then he starts listing off items, apparently having decided to order platters of all the least healthy -- and most delicious, probably -- things on the menu. The least classy stuff too but hey, they are still in a bar. The holo screen embedded in the bot’s torso displays the long list, which grows longer as everyone throws in additional requests after Rocket. Everyone except Peter and Gamora. 

“Do you want to add anything?” Nebula asks Gamora. “This place does family servings, so everything comes on large plates to share.”

“I am not sharing my fleadwort chips,” Drax proclaims. 

“No, thank you,” Gamora says. Peter thinks she’s trying to sound nonchalant but he can hear the stiffness in her tone. 

“Too good for family food?” Rocket sneers. Nebula and Peter both glare at him. 

“I am sure whatever you’ve selected will be fine,” Gamora says flatly. 

“Can we get a plate of spafitel too?” Peter asks the bot. It’s a dish he knows Gamora really...liked. Likes. Will like. 

He needs more alcohol. Deciding to act on that thought, he takes another long drink and this time only winces a bit. He’s had about half the glass now, and he’s starting to feel it. Partly because the drink _is_ really strong, partly because he no longer has the tolerance he’d built up with the Ravagers...but some of it also probably has to do with how hard he hit his head yesterday. He’d managed to forget about that when he’d decided to join the others with the booze, though it’s hardly his first rodeo when it comes to drinking with a concussion. If he was smart, he would stop now, respect his body’s need to recover. But he isn’t smart, so...shrugging, Peter takes another swallow before turning back to the bot’s screen.

“They have a good selection,” Nebula tells Gamora, before Peter has a chance to encourage her to consider it again. “You should order whatever you would like to try. I know you want to.”

“I am trying to _save_ units,” Gamora points out. “Not spend them all on un-nutritious food and drinks.”

Peter stiffens, hand tightening around his glass. He’d almost managed to forget that Gamora had only agreed to stay with them until she’s earned enough units that she feels like she can leave. His heart rate picks up in a brief panic, and he tries to force it to slow, knowing that Gamora can hear it. He downs the rest of his drink in a few quick swallows and reminds himself that _his_ Gamora also had not wanted to stay at first. This isn’t a big deal, she’s not gonna leave, he’s not gonna lose her again…

“That’s all then,” Rocket says to the bot. He points his thumb at Gamora without looking at her. “This one thinks she’s too good for us. Now go and get the damn drink bot back!”

“Yes, we need more drinks!” Drax yells as the bot trudges off. Nebula throws a fork at Rocket. He ducks to avoid it and flips her off. 

“Ignore him,” Peter says to Gamora, glancing at her once he feels he’s glared at Rocket sufficiently. 

“I am endeavoring to,” she says, sounding fairly unaffected, though she’s frowning. He knows, and he imagines Rocket knows too, that far from feeling she’s too good for them, Gamora most likely feels that she’s not good enough. That’s how his Gamora had felt, for quite a while; that she couldn’t possibly deserve something as good as friends. Family. Love. 

“Don’t worry about the units, either,” he says as casually as he can muster. “I’ll pay.” The drink bot is back, and he snags two more, both for himself. That’s probably a really bad idea, especially with the way his head is feeling, but he can’t find it in himself to care right now. 

Nebula raises an eyebrow at him. “Oh, are you planning on picking up everyone’s tab? How generous of you.”

Peter sighs. “No. But I’ll get hers.”

“Like a date?” asks Rocket, helpful as ever.

“No!” he protests, immediately regretting this decision. He was just trying to be helpful, just trying to make her feel comfortable trying whatever food she might want without having to worry about her limited resources. He hasn’t forgotten about how desperate she’d been to sell the Orb, to have enough units for a life free from Thanos. Of course, she isn’t on her own with that now, but it’s not like she’s accepted that yet.

“They did share a room last night,” Drax points out. 

“Yeah,” Peter retorts, “she was nice enough to give me the bed so I could get some sleep without your snoring.”

Rocket pantomimes gagging, then swipes a drink off a tray that was clearly headed toward another table, downing half of it before the bot can protest.

“There’s nothing--” Peter says, growls when he can’t find the right words. “It’s not--”

“Do you want anything else?” the drink bot asks, interrupting him, which is probably for the best. He glances at Gamora as the others put in various drink requests--or demands, more accurately. She’s tense and there’s a slight dark green flush to her cheeks but she is doing her best to look composed and avoid everyone’s eyes. 

“Hey, they’re just--” he begins in a whisper, but she interrupts him too. 

“It is fine,” she says stiffly. “It doesn’t matter. And you’re not paying for me.”

“Really, it’s not a big--”

“I am not going to eat anything anyway,” she says firmly. “So it’s irrelevant.”

“C’mon, you gotta at least try the food when it comes,” he says. He knows better than to try to convince her to drink, especially as most alcohol has no effect on her. “You’ll like it.”

“I do not eat food I haven’t seen prepared,” she reiterates. Then adds, “Usually,” likely in deference to the fact that she has eaten things he’s made her that she hasn’t watched him make. 

“Look, I’ll take bites out of it all first,” he tells her. 

“I will too!” Mantis says eagerly. Peter looks up, startled; he hadn’t realized anyone had been listening. But the drink bot is gone, and they all, besides Gamora and Groot, have at least one drink in front of them. 

"We will all be sharing the same food," Nebula points out. "If that is not a sufficient gesture of trust for you, then I don't know what will be."

Gamora eyes her, then Mantis, then Peter before finally turning back to Nebula again. It's painfully clear to him that she _wants_ to eat, to experience the new foods that he's sure she can smell being prepared. But she's still afraid. "So if someone tries to poison us, we will all die together? Excellent strategy."

"We are family!" Mantis says earnestly, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm in Gamora's tone. "We do everything together!"

"No one here is going to poison us," says Nebula, in a surprising show of good will for her. Agreeing with her so frequently is still gonna take some getting used to, Peter thinks. "But even if they did, would you really want to be the sole survivor? In a world where you have no money, no resources, no friends?"

A few days ago, she would have said she had no friends here either, would have claimed no affiliation with any of them. Would have reminded them all that she wanted no part of team or family, that she was not the woman who belonged with them. Peter braces himself for it, hand around his new drink. 

"I suppose not," she says instead. 

“Great,” Rocket says with an eye-roll. “So we’ll all die together. Wonderful.” It might just be that Peter’s feeling more sympathetic to him lately, but he thinks he doesn’t sound quite as derisive as he’s going for. He, more than anybody, would probably prefer that scenario to being the survivor again. Nebula too. 

“Buncha jackasses sitting in a circle?” Peter says lightly.

Rocket almost smirks. “Some more than others.” 

“This table is a semi-circle,” Drax declares, having clearly missed the point. Peter shouldn’t be surprised. Gamora, of course...this Gamora...doesn’t get it. Groot couldn’t remember because that wasn’t really _this_ Groot. A lot of that going around, though it’s not really the same… 

“Is this what you usually do when you go out?” Gamora asks, thankfully breaking those thoughts. 

“We usually just drink,” Peter says honestly. 

Nebula snorts. “Most of the establishments they frequent do not have as...edible a selection of food.” Quite a rave review from her.

“That’s because most of you are weak!” Drax says with an uproarious laugh. “There is nothing my stomach can’t handle!”

“Oh, yeah?” Rocket goads. “What about that pixyweed mixer you had on Krylor?”

Drax laughs even more obnoxiously somehow. “Oh, yes! I vomited blue for many days!”

“And that’s a good thing?” asks Gamora. She sounds skeptical, but also just genuinely curious. That’s one of the things Peter’s always admired about her: She has plenty of opinions, and plenty of good reasons to judge others harshly, but she’s usually more eager to learn about them instead. 

“It was very funny!” Mantis supplies, hiccupping again, which makes Drax break into a fresh paroxysm of laughter.

“My vomit was the color of Nebula!” says Drax, still laughing so hard at himself that Peter’s afraid he might start puking blue again _now_ just from the over-exertion.

“Say that again and I will kill you,” says Nebula, though there’s absolutely no malice behind it. Then she turns back to Gamora. “Drax is obsessed with bodily functions. He finds them hilarious. Actually, most of the boys do.”

“Hey!” says Peter, mostly because he doesn’t want Gamora getting any overly gross ideas about him. Sure, he was raised by Ravagers, but he’s come a long way in the past four years, mainly for her sake.

“I distinctly recall the last time you vomited, you declared yourself triumphant in it being brighter than Drax’s,” Nebula points out.

The memory comes crashing back as she says it, and he feels his cheeks flush. “Okay. Okay, well...it was really impressive, okay? It _glowed._ ”

Gamora wrinkles her nose. “This conversation is certainly helping my appetite.” She clears her throat, apparently trying to change the subject. “And what did the -- what did _I_ typically do on these outings?”

Peter’s too busy being pleased by her use of the word _I_ there to answer her right away, even though he himself still vacillates over how to refer to her, goes back and forth like a confused pendulum about it. He takes another drink and Mantis answers her first.

“You talk, like this!” she says, as if that’s very exciting and impressive. “And play games with us, and sometimes dance with Peter!”

Gamora’s gaze snaps towards him; her eyes are wide, startled. She is aware that they...that he and--yes, _they_ \--used to dance, though at the time he’d told her she’d been deep in denial about being the same person as the other Gamora, and he’d never told her they went so far as dancing in public. His heart sinks a little at the near horror in her gaze. 

“Not all the time,” he tells her. “And not right away. But when it was a decent place and the music was right…” He shrugs as if it’s not a big deal, as if the first time she agreed to dance with him in front of other people didn’t make him nearly cry tears of love and joy; how every time they danced, no matter where or when, always felt like a gift. 

He takes another big gulp of his drink. 

“I do not dance,” says Gamora. For the first time she looks as though she might wish that she had a drink of her own, though she makes no move to ask for any of the extras that are sitting on the table. Apparently the bot had decided that was a better approach than needing to return every thirty seconds.

“That is what I always tell Quill!” says Drax. He’s on his fifth drink now, and his volume is increasing without limits. He’s easily the loudest patron in the bar now, and that’s saying something given the level of the background roar. Still, nobody else really seems to be paying attention. “You are not a dancer!”

“You do dance, though,” says Nebula, before Peter’s even had a chance to protest Drax’s statement. “You dance with him often. Sometimes even in public. You are disgustingly good at it.”

“I do not know how to dance,” Gamora tries to insist.

“I’ll teach you!” says Peter, then immediately wonders whether he wants to do that. Well, no. He _does_ want to do that. He wants _everything_ with her and...really that’s how he’d gotten himself in trouble, isn’t it? He still doesn’t know how he feels about that relative to...everything. 

“You are good at it,” Nebula repeats. “And you enjoy it, too. You once told me it was surprisingly similar to combat, only more fun.”

Now it’s Peter’s turn to be startled as he looks at Gamora with wide eyes, though he knows this fact will be news to her too. He’d known she was good at dancing, of course, and that she enjoyed it, but he doesn’t think he’s ever heard her describe it that way; he certainly didn’t know she’d described it that way to Nebula. 

He finds himself smiling a little. He likes that analogy, likes that she told Nebula. Though, like most things lately, it makes him sad too, to realize there was so much about her he didn’t know. So much he’s lost, possibly forever…

Finished with this drink, he pushes it aside to make more room for the other one he’d grabbed. He’s not even tasting them anymore, really, and he’s got a lightheaded feeling that could be due to either the alcohol or the head injury. Or perhaps a fun combination. 

He takes a big drink of this concoction as he waits for Gamora to continue denying her dancing abilities and inclinations, to say that that couldn’t possibly have been her, she couldn’t have loved someone like him enough to do that, or at least that she never would now. 

“I do enjoy combat,” she says instead, sounding uncomfortable but not disgusted or horrified. Then, in a transparent attempt to steer the subject away, she asks, “Did I enjoy the games?” 

“Very much!” Mantis says earnestly. 

“You won often!” Drax adds, apparently having no qualms about admitting his own defeat, though Peter can recall quite a few times he’d felt differently in the moment. 

“Are you kidding?” asks Nebula, her expression nothing short of a smirk as she looks at Gamora now. “Give anything any element of competition and you are all in. That has never changed, sister.”

Gamora looks a bit sheepish at that. “I am not… _that_ competitive. Though I do enjoy winning. Don’t we all?”

“Most of us don’t win when you’re playing,” says Peter, then smiles to soften that statement. He puts a hand up in surrender too. “Hey, not that I’m complaining. If I’m gonna lose to anyone, it had better be you.”

She flushes a bit deeper at that, but Nebula just rolls her eyes.

“Sometimes we also fight in bars!” says Drax, way too loudly for that kind of statement.

Gamora’s expression turns to vague horror at that, and Peter realizes how that must have sounded. Here they are trying to convince her that they are heroes, and now Drax is bragging about bar fights.

“We didn’t start the fights!” he says hastily. “Well--not without good reason, anyway. Mostly we just broke up fights if they happened. But sometimes if you got wind of dudes being creeps, especially to younger girls -- Well, let’s just say you didn’t stand for it.”

“I didn’t?” she asks, and Peter knows he’s not imagining that hopeful lilt in her voice. The desire to believe she is good, coupled with the doubt that she possibly could be, is a very familiar Gamora trait to him. 

“Never!” Mantis says with clear pride. “You pulled them away from the girls and had them cowering on the ground! You kicked names and took ass!”

“Yes!” Drax half-yells in agreement. “It was always most glorious!”

“Oh,” Gamora says quietly. Peter wonders what she was picturing before; perhaps that they all just liked to fight -- and to be fair, Drax does -- or that it happened because people recognized her in a bad way. That did happen occasionally, though she always did her best to avoid a fight in those situations. He’s glad the reality is a pleasant surprise. 

“You were always the best at finishing fights,” Peter informs her warmly.

Despite her assertion that she’s not that competitive, Gamora totally straightens up with pride at that. Peter grins. 

“Finally!” Rocket exclaims, drawing their attention towards him -- and the food that’s just arrived. It’s the first thing he’s said through this entire conversation, has been pointedly ignoring them for the rest of it. Peter supposes that’s better than hurling insults. “Give these morons somethin’ to do with their mouths besides gab.”

Well, it wouldn’t be Rocket without some insults. 

“Give me the fleadwort chips!” Drax demands. 

“It’s family style,” says Nebula, pointedly grabbing a few of the chips for herself before passing the plate over to him. “That means you share it with your family.” 

Nebula doesn’t particularly like fleadwort chips, Peter’s pretty sure. In fact, nobody but Drax really does. Still, she eats her handful with gusto, making a show of chewing each one -- which is an admirable feat, given how tough they are. The point, he thinks, is both to challenge Drax over his demand, and also to prove that she is now solidly a member of this family. There was a time when both she and Drax would have protested that statement, but now neither of them do, though he does pull the plate of chips possessively close to his chest. If Nebula can make that sort of progress, Peter tells himself, then surely Gamora can too. Or...can again.

“Here,” says Peter, when the rest of the food’s been unloaded from the bot’s tray and the smaller, empty plates for sharing have been stacked in the middle of the table. “Do you wanna share a plate? That way I’ll end up tasting anything you have first?”

She looks between him and the food for a few seconds, then around at the others. He’s intimately familiar with the look in her eyes, can easily read both the temptation and the fear. But it doesn’t take her long to look back at him and firmly say, “Yes. Please.”

“You got it!” he says, enthusiastically serving them some of everything except Drax’s chips, which are gross anyway. Once the plate is filled up to its maximum capacity, he sets it down between them and grabs one of the spafitel, the thing he’d ordered specifically for her. “Try one of these first! You’ll love them.”

He takes a bite as he’d promised he would, making a happy noise at the flavor. They sort of remind him of these potato skins he’d had once on Terra, stuffed with some kind of sour filling. 

“Will I?” she asks, eyeing them. 

“You do,” he says confidently, then clears his throat. “Or, you did...you know.”

“Ah.” She looks a bit awkward at that, and he’s considering apologizing when she finally grabs one and takes a quick bite, as if she has to do it fast or she might not at all. 

Peter knows the moment she registers that she likes it because she stops chewing for a second and her eyes go wide, just like she always...does. 

“It is very good,” she says when she’s finished one. She grabs another, then pauses again. “And...thank you. For sharing with me.” 

The smile she gives him is small but sincere, almost soft, and he can’t help but respond in kind. “Any time.”

* * *

As it turns out, he’s probably had one drink too many.

Well, actually, more like three or four too many. He lost count somewhere after the second one, but he knows it was significantly more than that. Significantly more than he’d planned on having, too. But it had been fun. More fun than he’s had in what feels like an eternity. Five years, technically, so maybe it’s justified, though he also knows he experienced that as closer to five minutes. 

All that time travel junk makes his head spin. Or maybe that’s the drinks. Probably both. Peter resists the urge to laugh at that thought, aware on some level that that’s what Drax would do, and he doesn’t want to come across that way.

“Peter?” Gamora’s voice comes through the haze. 

He doesn’t respond immediately, though -- They’re finally on the supply run that brought them to this planet in the first place, in a huge indoor market that boasts some of the best prices in the galaxy. He’s been here plenty of times before, but right now it feels overwhelming and confusing. Everything is too bright, too vivid, moving too quickly around him, and what did they need to buy again? A new brain, he thinks, then can’t help giggling at himself.

“Peter,” Gamora repeats, more firmly. Then she catches him by the shoulder, narrowly steering him out of the way of a group of teenagers running through the place.

“Ugh, youth,” he mutters, watching them laugh and weave their way through other people. He’s not the only one they nearly knock over. Then he turns to Gamora with a wide grin. Her hand is still on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Are you okay?” she asks, letting her hand slip off. He misses it. He’s not supposed to, he doesn’t think. 

“I’m great,” he tells her, still smiling wide. “Totally peachy.” He gives her a thumbs up. He has to blink a couple times to get her into focus. She’s as beautiful as ever, the skeptical look on her face so familiar it makes his smile soften, like he could melt. 

“How about we make our first stop somewhere that has water?” she asks.

“Ship’s got plenty of water,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “‘Sides, the others said they’d get the food.”

“You’re drunk, Peter,” she says firmly. “You need some water right now, not when we get back to the ship.”

“I’m not as drunk as you think I am!” he says, cackling. Then he frowns. “No, wait, I messed up the joke! It’s: I’m not as think as you drunk I am!” He laughs louder, looking at her expectantly. She raises her eyebrows, apparently unamused. That’s a familiar look too. 

"You're also not as funny as you think you are," says Gamora. "But you are drunker than you apparently think. Or thinker than you drunk, if you insist."

He's about to protest the first part of that when the second thing she's said sinks in. And then he can't find it in himself to be offended, because she's made an actual joke based on his joke, which is about the highest compliment anyone could ever give him. 

"Heeeyyy!" he exclaims appreciatively, then for good measure does finger guns at her and winks. 

She rolls her eyes, but there's a tiny, triumphant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth and nobody is ever going to convince him otherwise. 

"Come on," says Gamora, taking him by the elbow and steering him toward the edge of the room where there's a little stand selling drinks. She quickly purchases a large bottle of water, twists the cap off, and hands it to him. "Drink."

"You want me to drink more to get less drunk?" asks Peter, though he understands her meaning perfectly well. 

"Drink," she repeats, "or I will sew your face to your genitals."

He giggles helplessly. "That's a Nebula line, not a you line!"

“Yes, and it is a very good line,” Gamora says. “So now it’s mine too. Drink.” 

“I can’t believe you’re making me drink water,” he mutters but it’s completely playful. He has no qualms about listening to her. He always listens to her. 

He drinks half the bottle then smiles proudly. Gamora smiles back. “Good job. Do you have the list of supplies we need?”

“Course I do!” Peter says enthusiastically. He points to his temple. “Got it right here!” 

“Peter,” she sighs, hands on her hips with classic Gamora impatience. But she’s not _that_ impatient, because there’s that little smirk on her lips that always spurs him on. 

“No, really,” he says, screwing his eyes up in intense concentration. “We need...um….oh, soap! And uh…” 

“ _Peter_ ,” she says again, maybe a little more impatient. 

“All right, all right,” he says with a sigh, admitting defeat. And hey, he gets to listen to her again. So he takes out his holopad and only has to fumble with it for a few seconds to get it at the right angle to read his biometrics. Then he pulls up the list and is just about to start reciting it when Gamora takes the holo from his hands. 

“Hey!” he says, but he’s laughing. “Now I don’t have the list because you stole it!”

“I’m borrowing it,” she says evenly. Her smirk is back. “You clearly can’t be trusted.”

Peter claps a hand over his heart. It happens to be the hand that’s holding the very large bottle of water, which sloshes quite a bit, splashing him in the face. He splutters for a moment before remembering that he can wipe his face with his other hand, which is now free because Gamora took the holo. Which caused that whole mess, really.

“Hey!” he protests, wiping his hand on his pants. “Look what you made me do! You wound me!”

“Do it again,” she suggests. “Maybe if you splash enough water on your face, it will sober you up.”

“Okay!” he says easily, because that’s kind of a good idea when she puts it like that. Probably just because she said it. Everything Gamora ever says is a good idea.

She stops him with a hand on his wrist before he can actually do it, though. “ _No._ That was _sarcasm_ , Peter.”

He pouts theatrically at her. “Well now I’m wounded again. I’ll have you know that I am _very_ trustworthy. I’m a Galaxy of the Guardian, thank you very much.” He takes another swig of the water to prove his point. She hasn’t even had to tell him to drink that one.

Gamora doesn’t look all that impressed, but she does look amused. “What does your trustworthiness have to do with your ability to recognize sarcasm while inebriated?” 

“Cause--cause I…” He fumbles for the totally logical reason he had to say that, a reason he just can’t seem to fully remember at the moment. “Cause you can trust me to be able to splash water on my face!” 

“That is true,” she says, with a shake of her head and a smile that feels like a victory. “But you have already demonstrated that ability very well, so try to get the rest of the water in your mouth.”

“You can trust me to do that too!” he says proudly, taking another swig. 

“Very good,” she says, then turns back to the holo in her hand, scanning the list. They usually aren’t this organized with supply runs, but Nebula had insisted that since they were splitting up they should have lists, so they don’t end up with triple of one thing and none of another. Which has only ever happened like...a dozen times. Hey, he should remind Nebula he’s totally trustworthy too. 

“Let’s start with cleaning supplies,” Gamora says. “Since there’s a stall right there.” She points to one just a little ways up.

“But that’s the most boring stuff,” Peter whines.

“Then it is good that we’ll be getting it out of the way first,” she says, already walking towards it. 

"Well," says Peter, " _you_ don't think it's boring. You love to clean." He wonders for a moment whether maybe this Gamora doesn't, whether she might be more tolerant of his messes. He's learned to sort of enjoy living in a neat, organized space, though. It's definitely more relaxing compared to what he was used to before. 

Gamora arches an eyebrow again, this time not so much challenging as curious. "Oh, do I?"

"Yes," he agrees, nodding vigorously. The movement makes his stomach slosh uncomfortably, so he stops just as quickly as he's started. "You like cleaning, and laundry, and washing dishes. Well...maybe you don't like _doing_ those things but you sure get unhappy when we _don't_ do them." He clears his throat. "When I don't do them, mostly."

"Huh," says Gamora, looking thoughtful now. Maybe it was a mistake to tell her that, he thinks. "I would like to live in a space that is...nice, someday. I never have before."

He pouts dramatically at her. "What, the Benatar isn't nice?"

“It is very nice,” she says with a little smile. “It is the nicest place I have ever slept.”

If he were more sober and less, well, recovering from a head injury, he might pay more attention to the way she said _slept_ instead of _lived_. But that blissful combination instead allows him to breeze right past that and say, “Fine, then let’s make it even nicer! Have all the cleaning stuff you want!”

“Gee, thank you,” she says dryly. They’ve made it to the stall, which is separated into small sections. Gamora goes through and selects exactly what is on the list and only that, not getting distracted the way Peter does. 

“Hey, check this out,” he says, picking up a tiny spherical machine about the size of a baseball. “It says this thing goes around and automatically cleans your floors!” 

“That’s right!” says the salesperson, an old Akon lady whose sudden appearance startles him. His environmental awareness might not always be the best when he’s drunk and maybe still a little concussed. “And this is the best price you’ll find in this quadrant!” 

Gamora looks unimpressed. “I would not trust a machine like that. This is all.” She holds up her basket of items to the lady. 

“Aww,” Peter whines. “You don’t trust anyone tonight!” He holds the little orb up at eye level, like it might have a face of its own. Then he uses his other hand to pat it on its tiny machine head. “It’s okay, she doesn’t trust me either right now.”

“If you’re going to make friends with it,” says the saleswoman, “you really ought to take it home with you, don’t you think?” She’s in full-on hustle mode now, grinning at him instead of completing the transaction for Gamora.

“No, I don’t think,” Gamora answers for him. She places her basket down in front of the woman. “This is all. And he’s drunk, so I wouldn’t sell to him if I were you, unless you want to be charged with taking monetary advantage of a man while he’s intoxicated.”

“I would want it anyway,” says Peter, turning to Gamora now, the machine still in his hand. “We had a similar thing a few years ago for the Quadrant! It would zoom around and Groot would ride it. He was a lot smaller then.” He pauses, trying and failing to demonstrate with one hand just how big Groot was at that point. “Then Drax stepped on it and it broke.’

“ _No_ ,” Gamora says firmly, and Peter finally sighs and puts the machine back on the table.

“You’re going to let her tell you what to do, just like that?” asks the saleswoman.

He shrugs, back to easy good humor now. “Well yeah, she’s my--” He manages to catch himself before saying _girl_ or _girlfriend_ , but there’s no taking back the first part of the sentence now. “My...uh…” He’s way too drunk for this. “It’s complicated.”

“It does not matter,” Gamora says, her tone harsher this time, almost threatening. “We are not buying your scam machine. If you do not want to sell us these products, we will buy them elsewhere.” She shoves the basket farther towards the woman and glares at her. Peter practically melts; god, that’s just so Gamora. She would never stand for people taking advantage of him. 

The lady grumbles incoherently but completes the transaction, glowering at Gamora every chance she gets. Gamora stands firm, her arms crossed over her chest. 

When the sales lady hands the stuff to Gamora in a bag, she turns back to Peter and says, “Watch out for the bossy ones.” 

Gamora makes a noise that’s almost a growl and glares dangerously at the woman. Before either of them can say anything else, Peter puts a hand on Gamora’s back to steer her away from the stall, despite the fact that he’s still not completely coordinated. But he only trips over his own feet a little bit.

“She clearly doesn’t know my type,” Peter says with a wink, once they’re a while away from the stall and Gamora has stopped glaring over her shoulder. 

“Pushy old ladies?” Gamora mumbles, and Peter laughs so hard he has to take his hand off her back to clutch at his sides. 

“No,” he gasps finally, hiccupping a few times. His head is pounding and feels kind of floaty, but he’s not really going to complain about either of those things. Mostly he feels _good_ , even if Gamora didn’t let him buy a totally legitimate, totally adorable automatic floor cleaner. “Not pushy. Stabby. Like you.” He points at her for good measure.

“Are you calling me old, Peter?” she asks, pushing down the hand he’s using to point, albeit gently. 

He frowns, confused by that. Maybe there’s a translator issue, he thinks. Those happened a lot with Gamora at first, so it stands to reason… “No, I called you stabby. Like, stab things. Stab, stab, those are my terms!”

She rolls her eyes for what seems like the millionth time in just a few minutes. “Yes, I understood that part. But you substituted ‘stabby’ for ‘pushy’ in ‘pushy old ladies.’ So wouldn’t that make me a stabby old lady?”

“Well you are from the past!” says Peter, then laughs at his own joke again. Then he thinks some more about what she’s just said, and ends up confused all over again. “I dunno. I was never good at those analogy things.”

“Let’s focus on supplies,” she says primly, though she doesn’t seem that irritated. Maybe she’s confused like him. “From more pleasant people than that.” 

“You got it!” he says easily. He’s got no qualms about always listening to her, no matter what any pushy old people say. “How about something more fun than disinfectant this time, though?”

“Do paper goods qualify as _fun_?” she asks, veering towards a stall aptly named _Paper Goods_.

Peter sighs. “I guess. But like, only by default, because pretty much everything is more interesting than cleaning stuff. Isn’t there candy anywhere on that list?”

“No,” Gamora says, grabbing a box of tissues. “But I do not have the food list.”

“We totally should’ve been in charge of the food,” he grumbles, taking that box when she gives it to him. This stall doesn’t offer baskets. “I would’ve gotten nothing but candy!”

“Perhaps that is why you were not placed in charge,” she points out. 

“Probably true,” Peter says sagely. “You’re so smart.”

She gives him a bemused look, but she’s smiling. “You are so drunk.”

He shrugs. “Both of those things can be true.” She nearly laughs and that feels like a victory. 

Gamora turns back to the stall, picking up another box of tissues and stacking it on top of the one he's currently holding. They're fairly big boxes, but she selects a third and then a fourth, giving those to him too. Fortunately they're really light, or else he thinks they would probably knock him off balance right now. 

"Hey," he protests good-naturedly. "You trying to imply something about the amount of tissues I use?"

She arches an eyebrow, handing him yet another box. "Are you the only one on the ship who uses tissues?"

He considers this very hard. "No, probably not. But I'm the one who's been cryin' all the time lately."

Gamora shrugs. "Hey, you said it, not me." She pauses, something in her face softening. "Though I would certainly prefer if you had less reason to use tissues in the future."

"Awww," says Peter, then nearly drops all the boxes he's holding as he tries to put a hand over his heart again. 

“Peter!” Gamora reaches out and steadies the boxes for him. He grins gratefully at her. “Perhaps only three…”

“No, I can handle it!” he says, holding very still so the boxes don’t topple. They don’t even go up to his eye-level when he holds his arms down near his waist, he’s totally got this. Besides, even drunk and pretty loopy, he knows he’s going to need them eventually. 

“We will get a bag when we buy them,” Gamora says, eyeing the boxes as if she doesn’t trust them not to fall. 

“You know,” he says, as he follows her to another section of the stall, “you’ve seen me cry like a dozen times. You just don’t remember.”

She gives him a skeptical look. “It was more than a dozen, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he says, but he’s smiling. “See, you know me so well.”

She shakes her head. “I know we need toilet paper next.”

“Get the good stuff,” he says. “Drax is really picky.”

She wrinkles her nose, such an adorable look of disgust he laughs out loud. “I would rather not know Drax’s bathroom preferences, thank you.”

"Oh," says Peter, "well, if you're gonna live on the Benatar then you're gonna hear lots about that. Like, _lots_ lots."

"What a convincing endorsement," Gamora says dryly. But she grabs a pack of some of the nicer toilet paper. Then she seems to think better of it and gets a second. These are considerably larger than the boxes of tissues, larger than the width of her shoulders and tall enough that the two of them tower above her head. She holds them in one arm like it's nothing, though, moving onto the next items in the stall. 

Peter stares after her, his jaw practically on the floor, though it's not like this isn't an everyday occurrence. It's just not one he ever seems to get used to. 

"Do we need napkins?" asks Gamora, looking at the packs of those. She apparently thinks she can carry even more stuff. And, to be fair, she probably can. "They're not on the list but I don't recall--" She turns around and breaks off, catching him staring at her.

“What?” she asks. She has to bend her head around the pile of toilet paper to give him a curious, confused look.

“Nothing,” he says quickly, trying to make himself not smile. “Nothing, just uh...wondering how we’re gonna carry all this back to the ship. We’re not even done shopping, there’s still more stuff after this.”

“I am more than capable of carrying it all,” Gamora says, as if he’s challenged her strength somehow. “If it is too much for you.”

He shakes his head fondly. That makes his head feel a little funny so he stops. “I know you can carry it all, but it’s gonna be hard to navigate like that, and buy even more stuff. Here, hang on!” 

He drops all the tissue boxes he was holding, ignoring Gamora’s confused call of his name as he dashes out into the path between vendors. There are carts scattered here and there, so he grabs the nearest one, tossing out a couple shirts that were in it--clearly the person didn’t want them that bad if they left their cart unattended, really--and brings the now empty cart back to Gamora with a proud grin. 

“Put the stuff in here!” he tells her, picking up the tissue boxes to do just that. 

When he finishes that, head spinning from the movement of bending over and straight back up several times, he notices that Gamora is still holding the packs of toilet paper. 

"Hey!" he says louder, waving at her like she doesn't have enhanced senses. "Hey, put them in here!" 

"Peter," she says, shaking her head. "You just stole that cart."

"No I didn't!" he says immediately, though totally not defensively. "I found it. Totally two different things."

"Perhaps," says Gamora, "but you stole this one." She points to an older man who's making his way toward them through the crowd, periodically pausing to shake a cane at them angrily. 

"Uhhh…" Peter scratches his head. "Quick, run!"

" _No,_ " says Gamora. She sets the toilet paper down, puts the tissue boxes on top of it. Then she retrieves the shirts and gives the cart back to the man. 

"Awww, babe," Peter whines when she gets back. "Now we don't have one!"

It takes him a second to realize what he said; to realize why Gamora has suddenly frozen, looking at him with wide eyes. When it does finally dawn on him, his eyes go wider than hers. 

“Oh, shit,” he mutters. He feels like his heart has frozen too. For a moment he’d forgotten that this isn’t--that she’s not-- “Shit, I’m--I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay,” Gamora says stiffly. Her cheeks are flushed and she’s avoiding his eyes. She doesn’t sound angry, at least. “You are drunk.”

Peter swallows. He certainly doesn’t feel drunk anymore. He feels like a bucket of ice water has been dumped over his head, leaving him cold and sober and wracked with guilt. “Right. I--I’m sorry. I just--”

“It’s okay,” she says quickly. She turns away from him to grab the stack of toilet paper and tissue boxes. “I know it is confusing for you. Let’s just finish shopping. I don’t need a cart.”

“Okay,” he says. He watches as she expertly pays for the stuff while still holding onto all that, feeling too strange now to try to take any of it from her. He’d been feeling so _good_ for the first time since… He shakes his head. He shouldn’t have been feeling that good anyway, not when this isn’t his Gamora. “Really,” he says again. “I didn’t mean--”

“I know,” Gamora says firmly. “Come on. We need soap.” Then she starts walking and he dutifully follows, mentally berating himself all the while. Now instead of trying not to stumble over his own feet while they shop, he’s going to be trying not to cry. 

At least they have plenty of tissues.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to our wonderful commenters, we appreciate you! :)

She ought to be annoyed with Peter. Really. 

He was obnoxious enough when he was drunk. She's killed men for less than the way he’d behaved at the market last week, she thinks, yet that thought never even crossed her mind. Instead she'd found it oddly...endearing. She'd wanted to take care of him again, to make sure no harm came to him while he was in such an impaired state. Especially no harm that could be construed, even by her own mind, as _her fault._

He does not deserve this sort of consideration, she thinks. 

He is, by every standard she has ever been taught, a fool. He has no regard for his own health or survival, which is worrisome, what with being a Terran in space. 

And he can't seem to make up his mind about how to act toward her either. True, there hasn't been a return of the surprising bitterness and anger since his apology. And true, he hasn't tried to seduce her or otherwise overtly pressured her to be the woman he lost. 

But still, _that_ Gamora seems especially palpable in his presence, like a ghost haunting their very shared existence. It ought to make her angry at him, make her avoid him, and yet…

And yet she keeps seeking him out instead; which would be embarrassing, except that he seems to seek her out as well. At meals, during downtime, when neither of them can sleep, he talks to her and smiles and even laughs sometimes, and she smiles too and it’s _nice_. She almost forgets she doesn’t truly belong here, that he’s only seeing her as the echo of who she isn’t. 

But then suddenly, something will wash over his face and his smile will fade. He avoids her eyes and stops eating his food or shoves it away altogether, like the mere sight of it is making him sick, when really it’s _her_. 

That should make her angry. It _does_ make her angry. But it mostly makes her concerned for him. And sad. And confused. And then angry at herself for feeling all of those things. 

She tries to tell herself that it doesn’t matter because she’s definitely going to leave after the next couple jobs they do. Then she can stop upsetting him so much. But then he’ll smile at her again or make her laugh and it gets harder and harder to believe herself. 

And then there’s...whatever the hell is going on with her body. A malfunction more personal than any botched modification. _That_ does make her angry in ways that Peter so far has not. Angry and confused, and weirdly betrayed all at the same time. Which is why she’s currently stalking Nebula, who’s just finished in the shower.

Gamora has her back to the wall across from the ship’s little lavatory. She’s relatively certain that all of the others are asleep -- She can hear Drax snoring in the other room, can hear Rocket thrashing around in his sheets. She can hear Peter’s heartbeat too, slower and more regular than it ever seems to be during his waking hours. 

So she’s pretty sure that nobody is about to walk in and catch her here. Still, even if they did, waiting for the bathroom is a perfectly plausible excuse. She isn’t even in her pajamas yet, and it’s not uncommon for an impatient line to form here in the morning or at night when everyone is trying to get ready at the same time. Actually, she’s fairly surprised that she has yet to witness it coming to blows, especially with the way Rocket and Peter have been behaving toward one another.

Nebula doesn’t seem surprised to see her when she opens the bathroom door, and Gamora didn’t expect her to be. With her senses, she could likely either hear Gamora’s heartbeat or her breathing, and she was making no attempt to sneak up on her sister. She just needs as much privacy as possible. 

Nebula gives her a questioning look and Gamora gestures for her to follow, then starts walking, hopeful that she will. Of course this Nebula...Nebula now...always does. She requires no cajoling, no trickery or strong-arming to get her to talk or listen. That alone is a lot to get used to in her new life. In a good way, though. 

She leads her sister to the captain’s quarters. She still feels guilty about taking this room, but Peter remains insistent that he doesn’t want it, despite sleeping there that one night. That one night that is the reason she needs Nebula’s help right now; the night this particular problem started. 

“What’s wrong?” Nebula asks as soon as she closes the door behind them. 

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” Gamora asks, instinctively on the defensive before she remembers that something being wrong is exactly the reason she brought her sister here. Still, she's committed to it now. 

Nebula just rolls her eyes. "Let me see...the fact that you were lurking outside of the bathroom waiting to pull me into your little sanctuary where nobody else on the ship can hear us? I highly doubt you are about to tell me that you have simply discovered a new combat technique or some other such nonsense."

Gamora sighs, fighting the urge to guard herself against Nebula. She knows better, or at least she is learning better, but it's still difficult to shake the old survival reflexes. "It is not -- precisely -- something wrong. Though it is confusing."

"You can trust me, you know," says Nebula. "Even if something _is_ wrong."

"I know," says Gamora. "But it is not something wrong, it is just--" She takes a breath, huffs it out in frustration, then decides to just move ahead with her purpose. Quickly, she lifts the edge of her shirt, exposing the top of the silver blush on her abdomen. "What the _hell_ is this?"

Nebula's eyes widen as she takes it in. And then she starts to laugh. 

She can’t remember the last time she heard Nebula laugh like this. In fact, she’s not sure she ever has. She’s heard her laugh derisively a few times, usually right before or right after killing somebody, but never out of genuine, non-sadistic mirth like she is now. 

Although, she’s not entirely sure this laugh is devoid of sadism. 

“What’s so funny?” Gamora hisses, hurriedly dropping her shirt again to cover up the evidence of her body’s malfunction. She feels her cheeks flush too, but a darker green, more familiar than the impossible silver on her abdomen. 

“I believe it happened this quickly the first time as well,” Nebula says. “Or perhaps you are ahead of yourself here.” She’s stopped laughing, but there’s still an uptick at the corner of her mouth, amusement dancing in her eyes. If Gamora weren’t so distressed, she would be more surprised to see so much genuine joy on her sister’s face. 

Gamora swallows as she gathers what Nebula is saying. “The same thing happened to the other Gamora?”

“The same thing happened to _you_ , yes,” Nebula says. “And you know exactly what it is.” 

"It's not possible," Gamora insists. "It's--It must be another malfunction."

"And yet it is right there," says Nebula, taking a step closer and using the tip of a finger to poke her in the abdomen, right where the flush is now hidden by her shirt. 

Gamora jumps a bit. Purely on reflex, she tells herself. To avoid recoiling and striking Nebula instinctively. Definitely not at _all_ because the poke tickles. 

"It's a malfunction," she insists. "There are no other Zehoberei here. No -- no suitable life mates or whatever nonsense they thought this represented. _I_ am not even _that_ anymore."

"Oh, aren't you?" Nebula arches an eyebrow. "What are you, then?" 

"A daughter--" she starts automatically, then cuts herself off and considers. "I am -- I don't know."

"You are glowing," says Nebula. "Just like you glowed before. For _him._ I knew it."

"Knew what?" Gamora snaps, bristling. As much as she is glad that this Nebula seems to have her best interests in mind, seems to want to guide her, it's still unnerving. 

"That he would make you happy," says Nebula, which is just so damn _nice_ that it's infuriating. 

"He doesn't," she snaps. "I do not care about him. He is an annoyance, if anything at all."

“Being annoying is his specialty,” Nebula says dryly. “But you have always found it _endearing_ , for some unfathomable reason.”

“Well, I do not now,” Gamora insists. She _doesn’t_. Sure, he makes her smile sometimes, and the goofy things he does occasionally make this strange, warm feeling blossom inside her, and the way he smiles at _her_ sometimes makes her think--but no. Overall...just annoying. 

“Your body says otherwise,” Nebula tells her, her lips twitching, and dammit she’s _amused_ by this. She’s teasing her. Not in that mean-spirited, taunting way she used to--they both used to--but affectionately. It still makes Gamora defensive, but she’s getting better. 

“Well, now you’re being annoying,” Gamora mutters, crossing her arms in a way that is definitely not petulant. 

Nebula lets out another genuine laugh. “And you are being stubborn.”

“I am not,” Gamora says, glaring at her. She relents quickly in the face of Nebula’s continued amusement. “Besides, even if I did find him anything other than annoying, which I do not, he certainly doesn’t feel--any sort of way about me. I will never be the Gamora he loved.”

Nebula shakes her head and rolls her eyes, a more familiar gesture. “You already are. You always have been. There is only one Gamora. You are both just idiots who don’t understand that. Really, you deserve each other.” 

"I do not deserve him," Gamora says automatically. 

“Oh, how interesting,” says Nebula. She’s pleased with herself, to be sure, that familiar edge of triumph that her voice gets every time she knows she has the upper hand. Rare occasions that those have been, growing up together. But there’s still that warmth there too. That affection. “Because he is too good for you or because you are too good for him?”

“Because,” says Gamora, then finds herself immediately stymied again. She is very sure of the fact that she and Quill are _not_ a good match. Not a match worth even considering. She certainly would never consider him a _life mate_ or...or herself capable of being _that_ to anyone else either. But when Nebula puts it that way...True, Peter is a fool. He’s immature and hot-headed and he wears his heart on his sleeve. Plus, he’s a Terran. But he is also undeniably a hero. Undeniably good, and sweet, and awfully selfless. And she is...She is Gamora. Favorite daughter of Thanos. Now an orphan, without a direction. She takes a breath, blows it out. “Because I am...Just-- _because._ ”

“Do you think I deserve to be happy?” Nebula asks. The question is so unexpected and off topic that Gamora just stares at her for a second, waiting for her to elaborate or clarify, but she doesn’t. 

“What?” Gamora asks finally. “What does that have to do with anything?” 

“Whatever you are thinking about yourself,” Nebula says, an edge to her voice that implies she believes she knows exactly what that is, “I have thought about myself as well. Plenty of it is true. But you told me once, though you do not remember, that I deserve to be happy no matter what I have done in the past, or what Thanos made me to be.” 

“You do,” Gamora says, and she means it. There’s no debate, no question about it. Even if she didn’t know _this_ Nebula, who _her_ Nebula would have grown to be...she still would believe that. She has always loved her sister, though she buried that love deep down after Thanos took advantage of it over and over again. Better to be adversaries. Safer. But not anymore. “Now I suppose you are going to tell me I deserve to be happy as well.”

Nebula shrugs one shoulder. “No. Just me.” Then she smirks again, and the joke startles a laugh out of Gamora. 

“And are you?” asks Gamora, when she manages to compose herself again. She searches Nebula’s face, still can’t quite read the emotions there. She knows that they’re none of what she’s used to -- none of the anger or bitterness or fear. But whether or not she’s seeing happiness...well, she’s not even sure what that would look like in her sister, she realizes with a little shock. It’s not something she’s really ever considered for either of them.

Nebula is quiet for a long moment, clearly struggling with how to answer that. “Well, that is not a fair question right now.”

Gamora crosses her arms. “How is it not? You are here telling me that you know how to make me happy, that you know _what_ makes me happy more than I do for myself. And that I deserve to be if you deserve to be. So...are you?”

“How could I be?” asks Nebula, sounding more exasperated than anything else now. “How could I be when the most important person in my life has been dead for the past five years? And now she is back, but all she wants to do is tell me how she doesn’t deserve anything good.”

“Oh.” Gamora shifts uncomfortably. All of this time, she has been considering mostly how her presence has been affecting the rest of the team; particularly Peter, but Rocket and Groot as well. Nebula has been so vocal about seeing her as the same Gamora that they lost, and has been so kind and supportive towards her. She’s been her rock, really. But of course, Gamora has been hurting her too. 

“I am sorry,” Gamora says. Nebula barely lets her get the apology out before she’s shaking her head. 

“Do not be an idiot and feel guilty,” she says, though she is already looking at her like she’s an idiot. While still being kind. It is a strange look to receive. “I am happy to have you back, sister. But I cannot be truly happy while you are not.”

“I don’t know how to make people happy,” Gamora says, the confession slipping out of her before she has a chance to rethink it. 

“Yes, you do,” Nebula says, infuriatingly calm and confident. “You are great it.”

“The Gamora you knew was,” she insists. “I haven’t been making anyone happy. You said yourself, you are not happy because of me.”

Nebula looks unimpressed. It’s so strange, how difficult she is to rile up now. With the Nebula she is used to, all she had to do was glance at her and she’d be snarling, ready to fight. 

“You are twisting my words,” this Nebula says calmly. “Which you know.”

“No I am not,” Gamora insists. “I’m not. You may not have _said_ that I am making you unhappy, but I am and we both know it’s true. You want me to be her, or -- or you want me to believe that I _am_ her, and I am not.”

“You _are_ \--” Nebula begins, but Gamora raises a hand for silence and she breaks off. She clearly doesn’t want to, clearly has to make an effort to tamp down on the rest of that thought, but she does. An impressive show of control, and not one Gamora has ever seen her possess before. 

“I am _not_ ,” Gamora repeats, her throat suddenly treacherously tight. She pushes through, though, refusing to let it break. “I am not. Even if your argument is that I am not her _yet_ , what if I never am? You are all so certain of who I should be, so eager to tell me. What if, in telling me that, you are in fact preventing it from happening? You want to promise me so many wonderful things but you do not actually know whether they are possible for me to have.”

“You are only proving that you are that person by having these doubts,” Nebula says, obviously not getting it. 

Gamora sighs, closing her eyes to try to shut all this out for a moment. Nebula doesn’t seem to understand, _can’t_ understand the struggle and the pressure that comes with people who think they know so much about her, who expect her to be somebody else. 

She opens her eyes, startled, when she feels Nebula’s hand on her shoulder, a gentleness in her touch and on her face that Gamora is still unused to. It is an effort not to tense, but she manages. 

“Listen,” Nebula says, and there’s that gentle quality in her voice too. “Whoever you are, whoever you become...You will always be my sister.” 

Gamora bites her lip and blinks furiously because she will _not_ cry. But she will allow her sister to envelope her in a hug, which she returns easier than the first time, letting some of the tension she’s holding in her body ease. She is not used to this…but she could _get_ used to it, she thinks...she would like to. 

“Even though you have terrible taste in men,” Nebula continues, still hugging her. Gamora can’t help but laugh.

* * *

Grief, Peter is quickly learning, is a weirdly fickle thing. 

Up until...pretty much right now, he would have said he was kind of an expert in it. He’s had more than enough losses in his life, after all. There’s a non-zero part of him that’s _still_ mourning the loss of his mother, of Yondu, of the totally awesome father he’d spent so many years _thinking_ he must have somewhere before, well, Ego. 

Before it happened, he’d spent plenty of anxious, sleepless nights imagining what it would be like to lose Gamora. He’d had plenty of nightmares about it too, been comforted only by the fact that she’d _been there_ every time he’d woken in a panic, had promised that she wasn’t going anywhere, though they’d both known that wasn’t the kind of thing they’d actually be able to control. Still, he’d pretty much decided that there’d be no way for his own life to go on without her if it ever happened. He’d been more than ready to die at Thanos’s hand when it _had_. 

But now...Here he is weeks -- or years, if he allows himself to think about it that way -- later, not only still existing, but actually kind of, almost happy on occasion. 

It’s probably not a coincidence that most of those happy times are when he’s around the other Gamora, even though she’s not the same as the one he lost. She’s _not_... But that’s something he has to keep constantly reminding himself. So many of the things she says and does, the way she acts, the way she smiles, it’s all exactly like...well, like her. So much so that he finds himself forgetting more and more that they are not the same. 

Often over the past couple weeks, he’s found himself talking to this Gamora almost like he would have with _his_ Gamora. He smiles and laughs and tries to make _her_ laugh. He’ll find himself wanting to hug her, dance with her, flirt with her. And then, suddenly, he’ll remember, and feel so guilty it makes him want to throw up. 

He’s not stupid, really. He understands that this Gamora and his Gamora share the same DNA, the same biometrics, and the same past up until the point Nebula and Rocket and the Avengers messed with the timeline. That’s what is making this so difficult. This Gamora is acting so similar to how his Gamora did after they first met that he could almost believe he didn’t really lose her, but rather that she just lost some memory. 

It would almost be easier if she wasn’t, he thinks. If she was entirely different, if she really showed no care toward him or the others. If he was able to believe that she was really just here for the units. If she had left after the first couple of jobs. That would be easier, he thinks, because then he would know exactly how to feel: devastated. Then he would feel like he was grieving properly, like he wasn’t somehow betraying _his_ Gamora. 

Then again, he would also be miserable, and she would be _gone_ and--

Peter groans in frustration, pushes his headphones off of his ears and runs his fingers through his hair. Then he plants his forearms on the table in front of him and drops his head onto them hard enough to hurt a bit.

“I am Groot?” comes tentatively over the familiar sounds of his game, previously obscured by the music from Peter’s Zune.

Peter takes a shaky breath, sighs it out again, then slowly lifts his head. He scrubs a hand over his face, then rubs his eyes. That doesn’t make Groot’s expression any less full of concern, though, which just makes him feel guilty all over again. “I’m fine, bud. Just -- need to stop thinking so much.”

“I am Groot,” he says, not unkindly. 

Peter snorts, recognizing the attempt at teasing, though it’s spoken softer and gentler than Groot’s usual. He’s a good kid. “Yeah, I usually don’t have a problem with that.” 

Groot’s expression remains concerned, almost forlorn. This has been hard on him too; he was really close with Gamora, and she was so good with him. She’d know exactly what to say to him to comfort him, but the Gamora they do have doesn’t know him at all. 

Peter swallows and stands up. “I’m gonna go work out. That always helps me not think.” 

“And it will help with your weight problem!” Drax says from where he’s cooking up something that’s probably gross and inedible to anybody but him. 

“I don’t have a--nevermind,” Peter sighs. He pats Groot on the shoulder as he walks past. “I’ll be okay, Groot, don’t worry about me. And keep an eye on Drax, wouldya?” 

“Hey!” Drax calls after him. “He is not my babysitter!”

The last thing Peter hears before he’s too far down the hall is “I am Groot,” which almost makes him laugh; ‘ _You are a baby, though_.’

Gamora is in the gym when he gets there, which really shouldn’t surprise him. She always worked out a lot, and this Gamora has worked out nearly every day for the past week and change, though as far as he can tell, she’s usually done so with Nebula. Now, it’s just her. 

She’s on the treadmill, eyes closed in concentration, running so quickly and effortlessly that it takes his breath away just watching. He lets himself do that for a few minutes, though he’s well aware that he’s just promised Groot he’s going to work out, clear his head, do something other than _thinking._ He just can’t help it now, though. She looks gorgeous, powerful, and achingly _familiar._ She loves running, always has. Loves it more than training with weights, or with her sword, or practicing calisthenics and combat, though she knows those latter things are more important for her continued performance in battle. She’d admitted that to him once like it was some kind of guilty pleasure, like it wasn’t yet one more thing that made her amazing. She looks practically blissed out right now, and she’s not even listening to music.

A moment later, his own guilt catches up with him again as he realizes he’s been thinking about her in present tense. Thinking about the things she’s _always_ enjoyed, the things she _has_ told him, as if he’s known _this_ Gamora far longer than a couple weeks. As though she’s the same woman who told him all of those things, like she never--

“Did you want to use the treadmill?” she asks, which makes him jump and practically swallow his tongue.

“Wha--no!” he says hastily as she turns off the machine and steps off. Of course she knew he was there, Gamora always knows he’s there; she knows when anyone is near her. “No, no, go ahead, sorry!”

“Are you sure?” she asks, slinging a small towel over the back of her neck. “I am finished, anyway.”

He might be inclined not to believe her, but there’s a light sheen of sweat glistening on her skin and she’s breathing slightly faster than usual, which means she must have been at it for a long time. It takes a lot of exercise for her to actually show any sign of exertion, no matter how small. 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he says, watching her wipe the towel over her neck. “I don’t like running.”

“Is that why you were staring?” she asks. “Did my running offend you?” There’s a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth and the edge of something in her voice that makes him smile in return. He can’t help it; he always smiles when she teases him. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says, mock-seriously. “Running in my presence? I can’t believe you. So rude.”

“I was running only in my own presence before you came in,” she points out.

“Well that’s even worse,” says Peter, taking a couple steps closer so that he can have a normal conversation with her rather than commenting from the entryway where he was totally not creepily watching her. 

“How so?” She stretches as he watches, catching and holding first one ankle, then the other. She’s perfectly steady, perfectly poised and balanced as always, and there’s absolutely no way he misses the way the stretches make her quad muscles bulge and flex a bit below the hem of her shorts.

“Uhhh…” He blinks a couple times, trying to re-center himself, remember the totally witty thing he was about to say. It doesn’t work, of course, all of his brain cells firing and short-circuiting. “What?”

Gamora shakes her head in that familiar, affectionate way she has. “How is it worse that I was running in my own presence before you came in and discovered this horrific offense?”

“Oh,” says Peter, trying to remember how this joke was supposed to go. It’s not an uncommon occurrence around her. Really, it’s probably a miracle that he succeeds in making her laugh as often as he does, given how easy it is for her to render him completely speechless. “Uh, because -- Running is terrible and I wasn’t here to bear the horror for you, so -- so the offense was all on you?”

She levels an unimpressed look at him, but the kind of unimpressed look that means she’s amused too. Even though she didn’t laugh out loud, he feels a little surge of pride as though she did. “I’m not sure how that works,” she says, “since _I_ am not the one offended by running.” 

Yeah, it made a lot more sense in his head than it did saying it out loud. But hey, he’s committed now, and whatever works to keep that little smile on her face. “It definitely should. You’re probably offended deep down, you just don’t realize it, because the horror of running has blocked that part of you out.”

“Uh huh,” Gamora says. She takes the towel off her neck and tosses it onto one of the handles of the treadmill. It lands perfectly flat, draped over the center, of course. “Well, I am sorry that I offended you with exercise. In a gym. I hope you can forgive me.”

He heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Somehow I’ll get over it. But it’ll take a long time. And a lot of apologies.”

“Quite a few, I imagine,” she says, her smirk growing, “since that will likely not be the last time I run.”

He gasps, hand over his heart. “You’re already planning a repeat offense? What in the galaxy am I going to do with you?”

“I would like to see you try anything,” she says, a hint of smugness in her voice that makes him grin. 

“Anything?” he asks, taking a few more steps toward her. “Anything at all?”

Gamora backs up, circling so that she stays outside of his immediate reach and keeps her eye on him at the same time. He wonders whether she thinks he’s going to tickle her or something, which, to be fair…

“Anything at all,” she repeats, crossing her arms, which makes the curve of her biceps extra apparent. She has great arms. And great legs. Well, great everything.

“Anything liiike…” He reaches behind himself, snatches her towel off the handle of the treadmill and holds it up with a flourish. “This?”

“Oh, congratulations,” she deadpans. “You have captured my sweat.” Apparently she isn’t completely aloof, though, because a split second later she’s rushing him, trying to take the towel back.

“Nope!” says Peter, holding it over her head and snatching it out of the way of her reaching hands. He’s not dumb enough to think that’s going to buy him more than a split second or so, but it’s still entertaining watching her try to grab it. 

He tosses the towel over her shoulder as hard as he can, pleased at the sound it makes as it hits the wall and slides down in a heap. Then they’re both rushing after it in a tangle of limbs, everything happening so quickly that Peter isn’t exactly sure how he ends up pinned to the wall.

“Ha!” Gamora says, dangling the towel next to his head. Her other arm is pressed across his chest to keep him in place, nowhere near as strongly as she could, he knows. “I have won.” 

“Congratulations,” he says, attempting to imitate her deadpan, but he’s breathless and smirking so he doubts it works. “You’ve captured your own sweat back.” 

“ _You_ considered it a prize, apparently,” she says. She’s practically glowing with triumph. She’s beautiful. Her face is so close to his he can see the fire of victory in her eyes. He hasn’t been this close to her since -- 

_Promise me_. 

He freezes, the all too familiar surge of guilt and nausea welling up inside him so suddenly it nearly makes his head spin; or maybe that’s the horror of realizing that he’s let this happen again, he let himself forget _again_. Here he is flirting with her, being pinned to the wall by her when she’s not his, she’s not _that/em > Gamora. _

Something must show in his face because she frowns and pulls her arm away quickly, taking a step back from him. “I apologize,” she says stiffly. 

“No, no, you’re--it’s fine,” he says because it’s not her fault, it’s _his_. “I just--I gotta go. Uh, have a good work out!” 

Gamora blinks at him, looking shocked as he backs out toward the hallway. “Were you not going to do a workout of your own?” She’s practically gone pale, or as much as she is capable of doing. 

The horror on her face just makes him feel even worse. Really this is all his stupid fault. Literally all of it. Not just the fact that he’s barged in on her workout, not just the fact that he let himself get carried away in flirting with her either. Not just the fact that he’s let himself forget yet _again._ For the fact that she’s here in the first place, displaced from her time, her world, struggling to fit in. If he’d managed to be the actual fucking captain on Knowhere, if he’d been able to follow through with his promise, if he’d--

“Peter?” she asks, shattering his thoughts. “Are you all right?”

“Fine!” he says quickly. “Fine, fine. And nope! No, I wasn’t gonna work out. Hate working out, never do it.”

“If having me here bothers you,” says Gamora, “I will gladly let you have the gym to yourself.”

“No!” he practically snaps, then turns and walks away so quickly that he nearly trips over his own feet, then runs straight into Nebula in the hallway just outside the gym.

“Watch it, idiot,” she growls, but he just keeps right on going straight into the bathroom, where he opts for the coldest shower possible. Maybe that will shock some sense into his brain. At least it’ll keep him from having to talk to or see anyone for a while.

* * *

He wakes up in his bunk sometime that night, when the ship is quiet and still. Everything seems normally...All except for the hand currently covering his mouth and the murderous eyes inches from his own.

He yelps, muffled by the hand, and attempts to scramble back in bed, one of his own hands going instinctively for his assailant’s arm and the other reaching for the blaster he keeps under his pillow. 

Then his senses kick in enough to realize it’s Nebula, somehow managing to roll her eyes and glare at him at the same time. “I moved your gun, idiot,” she hisses. “I’m gonna take my hand off your gross mouth now, so keep it shut and stay still, got it?”

He nods, practically dizzy with adrenaline. Damn, sometimes he forgets how scary Nebula is. 

“Are you gonna kill me?” he whispers, only mostly joking. He’s hard-pressed to think of another reason for this type of wake-up call. 

“Not at the moment,” she says, her voice so low he can barely hear. “Now follow me. And I believe I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

“You also told me to stay still,” he mutters. “So which is it?”

She just glares at him until he drags himself out of bed and follows her warily out of the bunk area. 

“Where are we going?” he whispers, as soon as they get a few paces away from the bunks. The others are pretty heavy sleepers anyway, or have developed the ability to be during their time together. It’s sort of an essential skill for being a Guardian and not losing your damn mind. Even on the Quadrant, where there’s infinitely more space and more sound dampening tech, things tend to be impressively loud and lively at all hours.

“I said _follow_ me,” Nebula repeats.

Peter scratches his head and yawns as he does so, adrenaline fading into irritation. He was actually sleeping heavily for the first time in a few nights. No nightmares, no guilt-inducing good dreams. Just...blissful oblivion. And now it’s gone, courtesy of Nebula.

“Are we there yet?” he asks, deciding that if she’s going to make his night a shit show, he can do the same to hers.

“No,” she hisses over her shoulder. She’s moving toward the ladder, but she’s doing it slowly, either because she thinks he can’t move faster or because she’s being cautious about making noise. Probably a combination.

Peter takes two more steps. “How ‘bout now?”

She grabs him by the collar of his shirt and he’s so beyond caring right now that it barely even startles him. “Do you actually _want_ me to kill you?” 

He shrugs because he knows it will irritate her. “It’s not number one on my priority list, but go for it, I guess.”

She growls and releases his shirt, then points to the ladder. “Go.”

“God, you’re the worst,” he mumbles, but drags his feet over to the ladder and climbs up deliberately slowly. 

He’s kind of expecting some sort of ambush to be waiting for him when he ascends into the cockpit, or maybe a pile of dishes on the floor that Nebula somehow blames him for being left out when really they’re probably not all even his. But it’s just their chairs and equipment as usual, nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact that he’s here when he should be in bed. Which, actually, isn’t really that unusual. 

“Well, that was fun--” he starts to snark when Nebula makes it up the ladder too, but she shoves him into the nearest chair and cuts him off. 

“I didn’t bring you up here so you could act like a child,” she says harshly. “Or even more like a child than you already have been.” 

“Hey!” says Peter, definitely whining now. “I am not acting like--” Then he gets hit over the head with a wave of self-awareness that doesn’t even have anything to do with Nebula’s fists or batons and realizes how his tone sounds right now. He clears his throat, deepens his voice as much as he can. “I am the captain speaking.”

Nebula rolls her eyes. ‘You are _hardly_ acting like the captain of anything right now. Well, perhaps the Good Ship Dumbass.”

“Heeyy,” says Peter. “I see what you did there.” He yawns again, runs a hand through his hair, and all at once realizes that he was so distracted annoying Nebula that he failed to notice whether the door to the captain’s quarters was open or closed. That realization feels like someone’s dumped a pit of ice water directly into his gut, the adrenaline back immediately and stronger than ever. “Wait. Is Gamora--”

“She is fine,” Nebula says tightly, but firmly enough to convince him, to make him start breathing again. “No thanks to you, though.”

“Hey!” he starts, immediately defensive. But then he thinks about how he last saw her: Avoiding his eyes at dinner, quiet and tense despite the fact that she ought to have been enjoying the food. All because of his dumb reaction in the gym, he’s sure.

“Is this about what happened in the gym?” he asks, as it dawns on him that he ran into Nebula on the way out of there, right outside the door. She’d probably seen or at least heard a significant portion of what happened, if not the whole thing. “Look, I know I fucked up, I forgot for a second--”

“Yes, you did fuck up,” Nebula interrupts him. Her hand is curled into a fist at her side. He wonders how much self-control it’s taking for her not to punch something; like his face. “But not for the reason I know you’re thinking.”

“What do you--?” he starts, only to be interrupted again. 

“Hush,” Nebula commands. “Your foolish way of flirting is not the problem, it is what you did after.”

“I know I could’ve handled it better,” he admits with a wince, guilty again as he thinks about it. 

“You didn’t need to handle it at all!” Nebula says, apparently louder than she’d meant to because she growls and lowers her voice to a hiss. “She was _happy_! You both were, you dumbass! _Then_ you fucked it up because you are insisting on treating her like she is not Gamora!” 

“She--” he starts, then thinks better of it, takes a breath. “I know she’s Gamora, okay? But she’s not--”

“I am definitely going to kill you if you finish that sentence,” Nebula says. 

He closes his mouth so quickly and so hard that his teeth click together painfully. Only then does he realize that the muscles of his jaw are sore, that he must have been clenching his teeth in his sleep...or maybe just a whole lot during the day. That seems more like it. If Nebula doesn’t want him to say it, then he won’t say it...right now. He’s still thinking it, though, the truth of it playing over and over again like a drumbeat, like the pulse drilling in his temples: _she’s not the same, she’s not the same, she’s not the same._

“I can still hear you thinking it,” says Nebula, glowering at him.

“What?” Peter blurts, shocked by that statement. He wonders whether she’s somehow developed telepathy in the years where he was...well, out of the loop. But that’s ridiculous, he tells himself. He definitely would have known about that sooner, if only because she wouldn’t have been able to resist ridiculing some of his thoughts.

“Your heart rate gets all fluttery when you think about her,” says Nebula. “Or, more precisely, how you believe she _isn’t_ herself. Also, you sweat. It is disgusting. Even for you.”

He glances at himself; okay, so he’s sweating a little, but gees, it’s not that bad. He’s certainly sweated way worse in her presence before. But he’s got no energy to keep snarking with her anymore, what little he had already drained out of him. “Did you bring me up here just to tell me I’m a screw-up?” he asks tiredly, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Cause that’s not exactly news.”

Nebula rolls her eyes for like the dozenth time since she brought him up here. He’s told her before her eyes are gonna get stuck that way but she never listens. “No. And I didn’t bring you up here to indulge in your self-pity either.” 

“I’m not--” he starts, and unsurprisingly she cuts him off. 

“I brought you up here,” she says, something tired in her voice too, “because I am sick of watching you act like an idiot. It is hurting my sister.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asks, slumping back in the chair. “Genuinely, what can I possibly do? I can’t just act like the Gamora I knew didn’t die.” 

Nebula is quiet for a moment, possibly considering all the different ways she could murder him right there. He bets there’s a lot, and wonders idly what one she might finally settle on when she sits down in the chair across from him. 

“Fine,” she says with an air of patience, but still with that edge of _I can and might kill you_ about her. “Tell me why it is so difficult for you to see that there is only one Gamora.”

“Because -- Because there isn’t!” he splutters. 

She is so certain, and so is he, and he just doesn’t see how they are ever going to agree on this. She sees his current conviction as a failure, and he cannot view changing his mind as anything other than a betrayal, and -- well, he might as well hit his head against the wall. Then at least he might lose consciousness and not have to think about this anymore. 

“Look, I would love it if she was the same! Believe me, there is nothing in the whole damn galaxy that I want more. I _want_ to have her back, of course I want--” He breaks off as his voice cracks, shoves his fits into his eyes and wills himself not to fucking cry.

Nebula leans forward toward him, hands on her knees. For a moment Peter thinks she’s going to do something violent, but then she hisses, “You _have_ her back. The only one who does not believe that is you.” She pauses briefly, sighs. “Well, and her. But that is largely your fault.”

“If there was only one Gamora,” Peter says, adopting that same air of condescending patience she’s using, “then this one wouldn’t be here while my Gamora is dead. Two Gamoras.”

“One Gamora,” Nebula says, holding up her pointer finger. He’s surprised she didn’t use the middle one. “Two different times. Still the same, so long as the Gamora you first met is the same as the Gamora who died four years later.”

“Jesus,” Peter sighs. “You sound like Nova Prime.”

“Gamora told me about that,” Nebula says. She stands up straight again. “Have you considered that perhaps Nova Prime is smarter than you, and maybe you should listen to her? And me, for that matter. I am definitely smarter than you.”

“Nova Prime isn’t the one who lost her,” Peter says fiercely, ignoring that last part. 

“Are you being dense on purpose?” Nebula asks, massaging her temples as if he’s giving her a headache. As if _he’s_ the one who keeps bringing this up. She doesn’t give him a chance to answer, anyway. “How about a little thought experiment? If you are capable of thought. Imagine you had gone back in time five years, to before Gamora died. The day before.. You pulled her forward in time and now she is here, in this time, with us. Would you be treating her the same way you are treating Gamora now?” 

“Of course not!” says Peter, frustrated. “Of course not, because that would be _my_ Gamora!” He can’t help picturing that scenario, wishes suddenly, fervently that he had been able to do exactly that. That he’d been allowed to use the new time platform, or to use the Stones themselves. Even if he’d _died_ , as Stark had, it would have been--

“All right,” says Nebula, in that same smug tone, cutting into his thoughts and reminding him that he didn’t get to do any of those things, that that’s one more way he’s failed his Gamora. “I agree. Of course you would not, because you _would_ view her as ‘your’ Gamora, whatever that means. But she would not recall your encounter with Thanos, would she?”

“No,” Peter allows, thinking that would probably be for the best. He wishes _he_ could forget that. “But she would still be--”

“Your Gamora,” Nebula interrupts. “All right. Let’s continue this thought experiment before your mind wanders farther. What if you went back a month?”

“Still my Gamora,” says Peter, crossing his arms. He’s already irritated with this.

“And a year?” asks Nebula.

“Wha--yeah, still my Gamora,” he says, rolling his eyes and tossing his arms up, too restless to keep them still. “What is the point of this?”

“To try to get you to have a rational thought for once in your life,” Nebula says, still with that smugness about her, but real irritation too. She can join the club, he thinks bitterly. “Listen carefully and try to use your brain: if Gamora a year before she died would still be the same Gamora, but Gamora four years before she died is not, then what is the difference?”

“She--” Peter begins, but finds himself stuttering, unable to articulate an answer. “It’s--” 

“She still died,” Nebula continues. “So by _your_ logic, there would still be two Gamoras; the one who died and the one who is here now. _Your_ Gamora died, and this one who came forward in time did not. So why does it matter _when_ she came from?”

“Because…” he begins, but he has no real answer. He doesn’t know what to think but there’s a pit of _something_ in his stomach like guilt or dread or fear. 

“Because the truth is,” Nebula says, her eyes boring into him as if she could burn him with just her sight, “you wouldn’t think she was different if she still loved you. _That_ is the real difference to you: this Gamora has no memory of your relationship.” 

“That’s not--” he begins, because the way she’s put it sounds so horrifyingly self-absorbed that he can’t believe he’d ever be capable of such a thing. Like yeah, true, he’s more than capable of being totally immature and selfish, but not -- Not toward Gamora. Not like that. She’s _made_ him better than this, so it just isn’t possible. “That’s not true. She’s just -- She’s not the same.”

“You just admitted that, by your own logic, she is,” Nebula says pointedly. “Or at least as much the same _person_ as if you had managed to prevent calamity for ‘your’ Gamora. But for the sake of argument, let’s try a second thought experiment. Say you had managed to get ‘your’ Gamora back. Say we went to Vormir and somehow miraculously retrieved her in such a manner that she could be revived--”

“I do _not_ wanna think about that!” says Peter, already fighting the images.

“Too bad,” says Nebula. “My sister does not want to feel like an outcast, but you are not giving her a choice. So: Say we revived her, but due to her injuries, she lost all memory of you. Would you still consider her ‘your’ Gamora then?”

Peter sighs, feeling vaguely sick. “Yes, of _course_ , I wouldn’t hold it against her if she was injured!”

“But you _would_ hold it against her if she was simply out of her time?” Nebula asks. “Which is also not her fault.”

“No, I’m not--” he stutters. “It’s just different!”

“Why?” Nebula persists. “If not simply because she has no memory of your relationship?”

“It’s not about the relationship!” he says; the only reason he hisses it instead of yelling it is because there’s a weight on his chest keeping him from raising his voice, and a wobble in it he can’t control. “Or not--not in that way, not the romantic, sexual stuff. It’s about...Gamora was my best friend! The most important person in my life. We just… We fit together. And now…” He waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the ladder. He can’t speak anymore, or he knows he’ll cry and that’s the last thing he wants to do in front of Nebula.

“You could have that with her again,” Nebula says, imitating his gesture. “If you stop being a selfish asshole! I’m done trying to talk sense into a brick wall. Have fun with your self-pity.” 

Then she turns and climbs down the ladder without another word, leaving him sitting there, feeling sicker with guilt than he has at any point since this whole thing started.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as usual to everyone who commented on the last chapter!!! <333

The dream is getting familiar by now. 

She has it -- or some variation of it -- pretty much every time she closes her eyes. 

It’s even stopped waking her up most of the time, which is probably fortunate since the thing is so damn _persistent._ It’s like these images are trying to force their way into her subconscious -- or perhaps her _conscious_. Not that she is about to let _that_ happen. Thanos’s training has given her excellent control over her mind, among other things. In waking hours, at least. 

Tonight’s dream begins the same way it always does these days: She’s standing on top of a mountain in the snow. The wind is whipping bitterly around her, and she finds herself wishing that she had a real coat, something better than the leather she’s wearing. She turns in a circle, tries to find some sense of direction, though she knows that it’s futile. She will end up at the edge of the inevitable cliff no matter what choice she makes now. 

Before she’s even managed to come to a decision, she becomes aware of footsteps in the snow, the figure approaching through the storm.

“Quill, I know it’s you!” she shouts, though her voice is mostly carried away by the wind.

“You know nothing, Little One,” Thanos replies, loud enough that it sends a tremor through the mountain.

Suddenly she feels even colder than before, like the icy wind has penetrated her bones. As much as Thanos has haunted her dreams in the past, he’s been absent from this repeated one. But now here he is. She was foolish to ever think she could truly be free of him. 

He’s approaching her, already looming over her, and he looks...sad. There are tears on his cheeks. For some reason, this fills her with even more horror and she feels frozen in place.

“No,” she whispers, all she can manage. She suddenly somehow knows exactly what he’s going to do. “ _No_.” She reaches frantically for a weapon, her sword or a knife or anything, but when she pulls her hands away she finds them filled only with bubbles, no trace of weapons on her. 

“I’m sorry, Little One,” Thanos says, then he’s grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward the edge of the cliff she can now see, despite it having been shrouded in fog before he appeared. No matter how she tries to beat him off or yell in protest, she’s dragged, inevitably, to the edge and flung over. She’s falling, down, down, Thanos’ face the last thing she sees before -- 

She wakes up, heart pounding, a shiver running through her as if she is actually lying at the bottom of a freezing cliff. 

She is not going back to sleep, she decides instantly. Nevermind that she's been sleeping through other iterations of the dream, that she's learned to return to rest if it does awaken her. That was different. It was one thing to dream of Peter, to know that her mind was weaving him into this whole complicated, confusing situation. Even in the image of her own death, it had a vaguely surreal quality to it, a certainty that these particular events have never and would never be reality. Peter would never mean her any harm, she's certain. No matter how confusing his volatile emotions might be. 

But this dream, these images...they feel different. They're absurd, to be sure -- since when does a knife turn to bubbles? Since when would she ever be caught without any weapons on her at all? Since when would Thanos cry?

And yet there's a certainty in the pit of her stomach that these things _did_ happen, somehow. Or perhaps _will_ happen, more terrifying still. 

Gamora huffs out a breath and swings her legs over the side of the bed despite the fact that she's still shivering, wants nothing more than to curl up in a ball under the blankets. She is going insane. Perhaps this entire experience -- this ship, these people, Thanos' defeat -- is nothing more than a delusion. Somehow that would make more sense than any of it being reality. 

She needs something to ground herself, or at least distract herself. Maybe she’ll go punch something, or run on the treadmill until her legs ache. 

She doesn’t bother changing out of her sleep clothes, as they’re the same as the clothes she works out in anyway. She just puts her shoes on and leaves her room -- _this_ room -- before she can change her mind.

She’s only made it about half way down the hall when she pauses, some sounds reaching her ears that take her a moment to identify. Heartbeats; more of them than she’s used to hearing on this ship. The sounds of breathing and snoring, again from more people than are normally housed here. And the tinny sound of music filtered through headphones. 

Right. The job they’d done yesterday. The prisoners that are currently being held in the cargo bay/gym area, guarded by Peter who had volunteered to take the night watch. 

It had been a fairly easy job. The planet, Cuotis, was mostly unpopulated except for smaller, thankfully non-murderous, animals, and some plant life, all of it protected by the Nova Corps as most of that life is endangered. But what it lacks in life it apparently makes up for in minerals and resources that are popular in weapons-making, and they’d been hired to capture some people who have been mining those things illegally. 

This particular party of thieves had turned out to be only three individuals, barely armed at that. Really, the hardest part of the day had been withstanding the planet's hot, humid climate for several hours of a stakeout. Not that she was the one complaining about that -- She was rather comfortable, and it was hardly the worst environment she'd ever been in for a job. But she isn't accustomed to being with a team so utterly predisposed to whining about every little thing: The temperature, the slow pace of the job, the fact that the Nova Corps had specified the need to interrogate the prisoners upon delivery, which ruled out stabbing, disemboweling, or otherwise mortally wounding them. 

The prisoners hardly seem bothered by their current status either, if the loud snoring she's being treated to is any indication. Every so often, one of them belches or passes gas without waking up, and she finds herself grateful that there's a closed door behind her and the cargo bay, despite the fact that she’d been hoping to exercise. 

Peter is seated in front of it, cross-legged on the floor. He has his eyes closed and his headphones on, and he appears to be playing a drum solo in the air...with more of the air.

She pauses again, a feeling of warmth that’s becoming increasingly familiar rushing through her. It seems to be happening more and more lately. It probably has something to do with the deformity on her abdomen that just won’t go away, the blush of silver that’s ever-present around Peter. That would certainly explain why that area suddenly feels warmer, even as she feels the more figurative warmth in her chest.

It might not explain the smile tugging at her lips, though. Or the fact that she doesn’t either turn around and leave like she tells herself she should, or somehow make her presence known to him. Instead she deliberately stays still and quiet, wanting to watch him in this rare carefree moment for as long as possible. True, he’s seemed better for the past day or two, hasn’t freaked out and run out of a room she’s in that whole time, but he’s still obviously conflicted about something; whether being nice to her is somehow betraying the other Gamora, most likely. 

She has to cover her mouth with her hand to smother the grin that threatens when Peter starts singing out loud, his voice low and probably inaudible to the others. 

“ _Just let your love flow_ ,” he sings quietly, though with passion, eyes still closed. “ _Like a mountain stream. And let your love grow, with the smallest of dreams._.”

So many of his songs are about love, she thinks. Which makes sense with what she knows of him -- that he seems to love quickly and completely and without fear of loss or pain. Or at least he used to. She's not so sure about that now, what with the conflict she's continually seen in him.

At first she'd thought him naive or perhaps just incredibly sheltered, had thought those were necessary prerequisites for having such an open heart, but the more she gets to know him, the more she realizes that isn't true at all. He has been hurt plenty of times, and yet he persists. Perhaps he really is a fool. Or...perhaps he is stronger than she could ever hope to be. 

Her mind continues to wander as she watches him, eventually landing in the place where it always does when she hears the lyrics to his love songs: wondering whether he is thinking of the other Gamora. Whether he is resenting her for not being that woman. ...and perhaps resenting herself a bit as well. 

She doesn't get too far with that line of thinking, though, because then he finishes the song and looks up, flushing as he catches sight of her. Gamora offers him silent applause. 

“Gamora!” he says, quickly sliding the headphones off his ears so they rest around his neck. Then, quieter, “I didn’t realize you were there.”

“I figured,” she says. His blush deepens and she feels a bit guilty because he’s obviously embarrassed. He is smiling now, though it’s tentative. “Sorry,” she adds anyway. “It sounded like a good song.”

“It is,” he agrees. He presses something on his Zune that must pause the music because she can’t hear it anymore. “Um--what’s up?” 

“I was going to work out,” she says, deciding there’s no reason not to be honest, though there’s still an instinctive part of her that feels she needs to carefully guard every aspect of herself, watch everything she says in case it’s something that could be used against her. She believes that Peter wouldn’t do that. “I forgot about our guests.”

“Sorry,” he says with a wince. “If we were on the Quadrant we’d have way more space to keep them. Maybe we should’ve just let the Nova Corps pick them up…”

“I will survive without the treadmill until we get to Xandar,” Gamora says. “It was the right call to take them ourselves.” They’ll get more units for delivering the prisoners themselves, though she’s hardly been thinking about that for her own sake lately. 

“Really?” asks Peter, arching an eyebrow. He’s still seated, so he has to tip his head back to look up and meet her eyes. 

“Yes?” says Gamora, a bit confused by the question. It seems relatively straightforward in terms of advantages, and he’d been the one to volunteer once it had become clear that there were only a handful of thieves, that the Benatar was more than equipped to transport them. Then again, maybe he’s thought about the units too, and thinks that it’s all she cares about. “The Nova Corps has been devastated in the -- the past few years, as you have said. It must be a help to them for us to deliver the prisoners ourselves. It is -- It seems -- The heroic thing to do. Not that I would know.”

“Oh!” It hadn’t seemed possible only moments before, but somehow Peter’s blush deepens even more still, spreading all the way down his neck to where his skin vanishes below the colllar of his shirt. “Well yeah, that’s totally true and you totally do know! But I was -- uhh -- That was a joke. I was asking if you’d really, you know, survive without the treadmill for a whole twelve hours.” He pauses, scratches his head. “I guess it wasn’t very funny.”

Now it’s Gamora’s turn to blush. “Oh!” she says, echoing him without meaning to. That is probably something she should have gotten, something that her _other_ self would have understood without needing it explained. She makes an effort not to tense. “It is funny.”

He snorts but not in a mean way; his smile is genuine. “You don’t have to make me feel better. I know most of my jokes are hilarious. I was bound to have one un-funny one in my life.”

“Yes,” she says dryly, shoulders relaxing as she allows herself a small smile in return. “One.” Then Peter rubs at his eyes with the back of one hand, and it occurs to her that he has been out here all night, and he requires much more sleep than she does. “Do you want to go to sleep? I can take over here.” 

“No, no, I’m fine,” he insists. “I’m not tired.”

“Are you sure?” she asks skeptically. She can see the bags under his eyes. 

“Totally,” he says, waving the hand he’d just been rubbing his face with dismissively. 

“All right,” Gamora says. Then they lapse into silence. She’s just debating whether it’s ruder to leave or ruder to stay when Peter finally speaks again. 

“But I wouldn’t mind some company,” he says, something tentative in his tone, in his body language. He’s fidgeting with the Zune. “If you want.” 

She pauses for a moment, not wanting to appear too eager. But really she is, suddenly wanting the comfort of his company even more than she had originally wanted a workout. After all, _he_ wasn’t the one in her dream tonight. 

“Well,” says Gamora, aiming for a dry note again and almost getting there, “you are not a treadmill but I do want to.” She sinks down to the floor, sitting next to him.

Peter winces. “Oh god. If I ever turn into a treadmill, please just put me out of my misery.”

“Why?” she asks. “If you were the treadmill, you would not be the one running.”

He brightens. “True!” Then he turns more serious again. “Wanna tell me why you wanted to go running in the middle of the night anyway?”

“No,” says Gamora, reflexively. The fact that he’s asked has triggered her instinctive defensiveness, of course. It has never exactly been a secret that she’s had nightmares most of her life -- Thanos knew it, her siblings knew it. Clearly _he_ knew it too, about her counter-- about _her_. But still, sharing feels dangerous.

He shrugs. “Okay, fair enough.”

And all at once, with his simple acceptance, the words come tumbling out. “I -- dreamt of Thanos.”

That doesn’t appear to surprise him. He just nods, again with simple acceptance, like she’s told him something he already knew. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

She hesitates, which is better than immediately bristling and saying no, she figures. She sort of does and sort of doesn’t. Or, more accurately, she does but she doesn’t quite know _how_ to talk about her dreams with another person. The only reason Thanos and her siblings knew about her nightmares was because she would wake up in a panic or make noises in her sleep before she learned to better control that type of thing, become hyper-vigilant of showing signs of weakness even in sleep. She’s certainly never _talked_ about her nightmares with anybody.

Well, apparently she did. But not in her experience...her memory. 

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Peter says, his voice and tone so gentle that it again settles it for her. She still doesn’t know if she wants to go into _details_ , as some aspects of the recurring dream feel too...strange and personal to share. But she _does_ want to talk about it somehow. 

“This was the first time I’ve dreamed of Thanos since he...died,” she offers, which _does_ seem to surprise Peter. 

"Well that's--" he starts, then seems to reconsider what he was about to say. "Is that good or bad?"

"It's good, I suppose," says Gamora, then realizes that she needs to specify. "Not that I dreamed of him tonight. But that I had stopped dreaming of him previously. A few weeks ago, I would never have thought that was possible."

Peter nods sympathetically. "I know. He really did a number on your head."

"Did other--" She stops herself, hearing Nebula's voice in her head. "In the past, did I also dream of Thanos?"

She watches that choice of words register on his face, sees the surprise and then the cautious acceptance. He doesn't object or run out of the room, so...perhaps it was not a mistake. 

"You did," says Peter, his tone cautious too, like the words are a wound that he has to handle gingerly. "You did, especially at first. But later, too. You were always kind of -- waiting for him to come back and take everything away from you. Although you got better at blocking those thoughts out. We had a whole routine."

“A routine?” she asks. “For...blocking out nightmares?” 

“Well, sorta yeah,” Peter says. “At first it was just to help you after you had one, but then we had another routine that helped prevent them.”

“What was it?” she asks warily, not quite sure she wants to know. The word _routine_ conjures up images of _”routine”_ check-ups on her modifications, or like Peter and her past self had been attempting to manipulate her brain. 

“Well,” he says, resting his head against the door behind him. “After you’d wake up from a really bad one, it took you a little while to calm down. So I’d hold you for a while. You liked to feel my heartbeat. And I’d point out stuff in the room for you to see and feel, like...I’d tell you to feel the blanket, and remember when we bought it, and how I had to convince you it was worth it to get a nice one.”

“To distract me?” Gamora asks, still sort of wary but that all that sounds...pretty nice, actually. 

“Yeah,” he says. “But also to help kinda ground you. Sometimes your dreams felt so real you had trouble believing they weren’t when you woke up. But that kinda thing seemed to help. And hot chocolate, of course. And sometimes I’d make us a pillow fort.”

“A--what?” she asks; clearly this is another reference she is supposed to get. 

He doesn’t seem frustrated or disappointed this time, though. He just smiles, soft and a bit sad. “Well, a pillow fort is a very important tool for combating bad dreams. And other bad things too. Bad feelings, basically.”

Gamora nods, listening carefully because this is important to him. “And what does it consist of?”

“Pillows,” says Peter. “And blankets. You put the pillows on the floor, and then you kinda...drape the blankets over other furniture so you have a fort.”

“Like a makeshift tent?” asks Gamora, trying to picture it. 

He grins. “Exactly! But it’s a fort. A pillow fort.”

She arches an eyebrow. “A strategic location for avoiding emotions?”

His grin widens into clear delight. “Exactly! Well, bad emotions. You can totally have good ones in a pillow fort.”

She returns his smile, albeit with a much smaller one. “How did you learn that? Surely not from the Ravagers.”

“Well…” His expression turns sad again, though he doesn’t seem at all reluctant to share his thoughts with her. Surely this is something she would have known -- before. “You remember I told you about my mom? That she -- uh -- she died?”

“Yes,” she says softly. “I remember.”

“She was sick for a while,” he says. He’s fiddling with the Zune, turning it over in his hands, stroking along the side with his thumb. “The pillow fort was something she showed me after I found out. We’d build the fort in the living room and she’d bring cookies or something, and she told me that we could hide from the rest of the world in there; that the world was whatever we wanted it to be.”

Gamora’s first instinct is that that is untrue, as obviously a collection of pillows could not alter reality. But she can see why it would be comforting to a child, and why she would have indulged Peter when he made one. She can even see why she might have been truly comforted by it; not that she’d have believed that, but just the idea that someone could care enough about her to share something so personal, to go to so much effort to make her feel better after a nightmare...it’s making her throat feel tight just thinking about the possibility. 

“And what did you want the world to be?” she asks, attempting to picture him as a child. The images she conjures up threaten to make her smile again. 

“I wanted my mom to not be sick, most of all,” he says. “But I’d also be a cowboy slash famous singer in it. And I’d get to eat spaghetti and pizza for every meal. And Fleetwood Mac would release a new album every week.” 

She nods thoughtfully. "When I was a child -- a very small child -- my father told me that our gods lived in the sky, and that the stars were their eyes."

Peter's eyes widen a bit. Either she's never told him this before or he's having a very strong reaction to the information. Both, perhaps. "That's uh -- that's a lot of gods."

She shrugs. "I suppose, but it was normal for my people." Then she considers the little she knows of Earth traditions, from Thanos's attack on the city called New York. "I know Terrans worship only one."

"Well…" Peter trails off. "That's complicated, I guess. I only ever heard about one god when I was a kid, but like...Thor's supposed to be a god too and they know he exists." He shrugs, then makes a vaguely disgusted face. 

She decides not to further probe his opinion of Thor for the moment. It appears to be a sore spot. "When Thanos first took me to space, I thought I was completely surrounded by gods. And I could not figure out why they wouldn't listen to my prayers to bring my parents back."

“Oh!” Peter says, eyes wide. He definitely looks surprised now. “Gamora, that’s...that must have been awful.”

“Yes,” she says simply. Then, because she can’t resist, she asks, “Did the...Did I not tell you that before?”

He shakes his head. “You told me that you stopped believing in your planet’s gods after Thanos took you. But you didn’t tell me that part.” 

He appears to not know how to feel about that, and Gamora can’t say she blames him; she doesn’t quite know either. On one hand, it is almost gratifying to be able to tell him things about herself that he doesn’t already know, since he seems to know so much. On the other, she can’t help but wonder if that makes her even more different from the other version of herself than she already thought she was. She has the strange feeling that she wants to apologize to Peter but she doesn’t know how or what for. 

“You told me a lot of stuff about Thanos,” Peter says, saving her from having to decide. His voice is quiet, sad, and a little far away. He’s fidgeting with his Zune even more than he was before. “I knew he was a horrible monster and I hated him, but I didn’t realize exactly how bad he was until...all of this happened.”

“It is impossible to know how terrible he is unless you know him,” Gamora says. 

To her surprise, that makes Peter smile. “That’s exactly what you used to say.” 

“Oh?” says Gamora, considering this. Apparently she’s just proved the authenticity of that, so probably it should not come as a surprise to her. And yet somehow it does, and it pleases her too because -- Because it seems like evidence that she is, or _can_ be the same person that the others lost. And if it does, is she happy about that? Does she _want_ to be that person?

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Every time. You’d tell me about him -- Mostly after you’d had a bad dream, but sometimes during the day, too. If something reminded you of him, or when we tried new things. A lot of times you’d tell me about the things you couldn’t have because of Thanos. And every time, you’d remind me he was still out there somewhere. I’d try to comfort you, and you’d tell me that I had no idea what he was like. And I mean...I believed you, but -- But I just -- I had _no idea_.”

“Nobody should ever have to know,” she says. But so many people do now. She feels a sharp stab of guilt at that; she feels as though she should have at least been able to contain Thanos’ horror to herself, and those he’d already hurt. Now the entire universe knows. 

“Still,” Peter says. She sees his throat work as he seems to struggle for his next words. “I...I’m sorry.” 

“What are you sorry for?” she asks, unable to understand what _he_ has to apologize for when she--or her past self--is the one who failed to protect him from Thanos. 

Peter bites his lip and turns his head away to swipe at his cheek with his arm. Gamora doesn’t say anything about his tears, as he’s clearly trying to hide them, but the sight of them makes something in her chest ache. 

“Nothing,” he says after a moment. “Nevermind.”

“All right,” she says hesitantly. She wants to help him, badly, but doesn’t know how; she doesn’t even understand why he’s so upset, beyond the fact that thinking of Thanos would be enough to make anyone upset. “Would you like to talk about something else?”

“No, it’s fine,” he insists, in a poor attempt at a casual tone. “I’m fine.” 

“We could go back to the room and create a blanket fort,” says Gamora, without thinking about it. The image of it is just so appealing, so _soft._ And it was apparently comforting to -- both of them? The odd intimacy of the idea strikes her with that thought and she feels her cheeks flush. Probably not the right thing to say. Probably not a thing he would ever want to do with her. 

He makes a soft sound at the suggestion, though, somewhere between a laugh and an exhalation of pain. 

"What is it?" she asks when he doesn't elaborate, because she can't tell whether he's happy or sad or something else entirely. 

He shakes his head. "It's um -- it's pillow fort."

She blinks, even more confused by this response. "That is what I said."

Peter makes the sound again, half laugh and half groan. "No, you -- You said 'blanket fort.' Which is -- exactly what you said the first time I told you about it. You said 'pillow fort' was another misleading Terran name, because the walls of the structure are made out of blankets so -- so it should be 'blanket fort' instead."

“Well, it should be,” she says decisively. “Why would they give something a misleading name?”

“Terran names just don’t make sense sometimes,” he says, with a little smile that tells her he has probably said this to her before. 

She makes a displeased noise, as she hates misleading things, but it is his home planet, his traditions, so she doesn’t want to disparage that. “All right. Pillow fort it is then.” 

“We could make one here and confuse the hell outta them.” He nods his head back at the cargo bay door, the sleeping prisoners behind them, and Gamora feels even more foolish than when she’d first suggested the fort; she’d nearly forgotten about them, the reason Peter was out here in the first place, the reason they can’t both leave. 

“Another time, perhaps,” she says tentatively, and he nods with a small smile. They lapse back into silence after that, Peter still fiddling with his Zune. After a few moments of silence that are not actually all that awkward, something occurs to her. “Peter?”

“Yeah?” 

“What is Fleetwood Mac?” she asks. 

“Oh!” He seems surprised by the question but not displeased. In fact, he seems happy to answer. “Only the greatest band in the history of the universe.”

“Quite an honor,” Gamora says, but she believes him. His taste in music has so far proven to be good. 

“Do you uh...wanna hear something by them?” he asks. His hand has stilled on the Zune as he awaits her response, and she finds she’s eager to give it. 

“Yes, please,” she says. 

He smiles as he hands her the headphones and she slips them over her ears carefully, knowing how important they are to him. She watches him scroll through the titles on the Zune until he finds one by them. “Here’s one,” he says, selecting it. 

_Something in you brought out something in me_   
_That I’ve never been since_

His smile is gentle as he watches her take in the melody, which she cannot deny that she finds pleasant, and she has to close her eyes. It’s partly to take in the song, and partly because that expression is making her abdomen feel warm, her _whole body_ feel warm, and she has no idea how to handle that.

* * *

Peter’s been all over the galaxy, had plenty of straight up crazy experiences. He’s seen things that nobody on Earth could even imagine. He’s been a thief, and a Guardian, and even a sorta demigod for, like, a few minutes there. 

And yet, every time he finds himself in the wardrobe room of Nova headquarters, the only thing he can think of is being six years old, backstage at his grandpa’s church, waiting to go on for the one and only Christmas pageant he ever had the misfortune to participate in. His mom had promised that it was a great idea, that it might help patch things up with his grandpa and that he -- the kid who’d loved to put on costumes, to improvise shows in front of the living room couch -- would do a great job. She’d even practiced his one line with him, so that he wouldn’t need to read it on stage.

But then he’d been given a new piece of paper with an entirely different line on it at the very last minute. When he’d gotten on stage, he’d looked down at it and the letters had started to move, to flip around and turn into nonsense and --

So yeah, this isn’t his _most_ favorite place, though paradoxically he _does_ love the opportunity to do jobs undercover.

Not everyone is as big a fan of them as he is, though. 

“I do not care what the job is,” Drax says, arms crossed over his bare chest. “I am not wearing a shirt.” 

“Yeah, we know,” Rocket says with an eye-roll. “You ain’t gotta tell us that every time.” He’s currently angrily sorting through the small sizes, most of which he dismisses with a grunt and tosses into a pile. Peter doesn’t know what he’s looking for, as they don’t know what the job is going to require yet; he might just enjoy making a mess. 

“You made me wear a shirt to Stark’s funeral,” Drax says, pointing an accusing finger at Peter.

“Yeah, it was a fucking funeral man,” Peter says, exasperated. “You gotta wear a shirt.”

“My nipples are still healing,” Drax says, as though their sensitivity is somehow Peter’s fault.

Peter glances at Gamora to see her attempting to suppress a smirk; she of course doesn’t remember all the thousands of times they’ve had to hear about Drax’s nipples, so this is newly amusing to her. Peter finds himself smiling a little too. 

“I am not trained for espionage,” Nebula says. She’s looking at the assortment of clothing around them as if it’s personally offended her. 

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we’re more than capable of handling it,” Peter says. “The Nova Corps wouldn’t have asked us to do it otherwise.”

“Do you frequently do jobs that involve espionage?” asks Gamora, confused between Nebula’s protest and his assertion that this is totally within their capabilities.

“Well…” Peter has the urge to lie to her, to talk up how totally awesome he is at it. In part because he’s feeling the familiar pull to impress her, but also because he wants her to feel at-ease, confident with this team. Like she fits. That thought brings a small wave of guilt but he quashes it just as quickly, trying to remind himself that treating her poorly would be worse, would go against everything he -- and Gamora, really -- stand for. Lying to her would too, especially with the others around to point out the deception.

“Peter?” she prompts, and he realizes that he’s allowed himself to trail off for too long, to get lost in his thoughts. 

“Sorry,” he says quickly, and clears his throat. “Uh, no. We don’t do a _ton_ of undercover stuff, but we totally have before!”

“Mostly we just shoot people,” Rocket says helpfully. “Or blow ‘em up with bombs.”

“Or stab them,” says Nebula, apparently onboard with this direction for the conversation.

“Or put them to sleep!” Mantis says brightly, wiggling her fingers demonstratively. “Forever!”

“No, not forever!” Peter says. “Well, okay, maybe sometimes but…” He trails off when he actually really looks at Mantis, takes in what she’s wearing. “Mantis, why do you think you’d need a bright blue feather boa and flashing neon slippers?”

“Because they are beautiful!” she proclaims. She holds the ends of the boa in each hand and twirls them around. 

Rocket scoffs. “Not if you got eyes. And nobody would ever need to wear either of those things. They should be burned.”

Mantis wilts. Peter’s trying to come up with a way to make her feel better when Gamora speaks first. 

“There must be some call for them,” she says diplomatically. “Since they’re here. Surely the Nova Corps would not have them here if they didn’t have a purpose.”

That makes Mantis brighten up again, and Peter can’t contain his smile. That is just _so_ Gamora it makes him want to hug her. She meets his eyes and she’s smiling a bit too. 

“I am Groot,” he says, sprawled out in a chair by one of the walls. 

“Yeah, we know, bud,” Peter sighs. “No clothes. No hats. No nothing. You also don’t have to tell us that every time.”

“If he doesn’t have to dress up, I am not going to either,” Nebula says. 

“What, are you also gonna go naked?” Rocket asks with a laugh. 

“Please, all of you wear clothes,” Dey says, making all their heads snap towards the door he just entered through. “Except you, Groot, I know.” 

Nebula rolls her eyes, though Peter can sense a shift in her energy now, can see the smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She's messing with Dey, and she's enjoying it. "Fine. I suppose I will wear clothes if our pay is contingent upon it."

"Definitely!" Dey says quickly, in a tone that says he had never even considered making that a requirement, but totally is now. "Definitely contingent. No units until I see you all in clothes. Well, except Groot."

"I will not wear a shirt!" Drax booms. "My nipples--"

"Are very sensitive, we all know," says Dey. He clears his throat, apparently deciding to forge ahead with the briefing before any more nonsense can happen. "So, the thieves you all apprehended two days ago are part of a larger organization.”

“No duh,” Rocket says, unimpressed. “You already knew that when you gave us this job.”

“I clearly wasn’t finished,” Dey says with practiced patience. “We know they’re gathering materials to make a weapon or weapons, but we don’t know exactly what those weapons are or what they want them for.” 

“I bet it’s something I could make in my sleep,” Rocket says, nearly as humble as Drax. 

“Actually, we’re kind of counting on that,” Dey says. “We were able to get the names and contact information for some of the leaders of this group.”

Nebula appears even less impressed than Rocket. “You had a day and a half to interrogate these criminals and that’s all the information you were able to obtain? Give me five minutes with them, I will get all the information you need.”

“Without torturing them?” Dey asks. 

“Why is that a requirement?” Nebula asks. 

“I will get the information in three minutes!” Drax declares. 

“Look, we _do_ want you to get information,” Dey says. Drax begins to take a knife out of his boot. “But not like that.” Drax reluctantly puts the knife back, pouting. “We’ve arranged a meeting between you and the leaders, under the guise that you are brilliant weapons designers and you’ll be able to make the kind of weapon they want.” 

"Oh, great!" says Rocket, only the minimum amount of sarcasm in his tone. “Now tell me why we need disguises again? Because I _am_ and I _can_ , no deception needed.”

“Well,” says Dey, eyeing him now with the look Peter’s come to recognize as a certain shrewd awareness that Rocket probably has something in mind that doesn’t exactly conform to the Nova Corps regulations. “Because you’re not actually going to do it, of course. You’ll only be posing as weapons experts so that you can get more information from our contacts.”

Rocket considers. “Mmmm, I dunno. How much are they payin’ for this weapons design?”

“Rocket,” Peter says warningly, shooting a glare in his direction, then glancing furtively at Gamora. He’s working too hard at selling her on this whole heroes thing to have Rocket convince her that they’re actually just mercenaries after all.

“What?” asks Rocket, shooting defiant looks at Peter, then Dey. “How much are they payin’ us to make the weapon? Is it more than _you’re_ payin’ us to not make it?”

“Yeah,” says Nebula, the slightly sadistic smile back. “Are you prepared to match their price, Dey? I hear that is what most reputable establishments do when there is competition for goods and services.”

“They’re kidding,” Peter says hastily. “Guys, cut it out.” He glances nervously over at Gamora again, but it turns out he has no reason to worry. She’s shooting Nebula a look, and when Nebula shrugs in return, Gamora smirks and shakes her head. Their understanding appears to be strong, nearly as strong as it was between...well, between them before. 

He can’t help but feel a strange sense of jealousy at that. 

“I know,” Dey says. He’s _also_ shooting Rocket and Nebula a look, which they return with smirks of their own, and it suddenly occurs to Peter that the three of them have five years of experience that he’s missing. “And I also know that you wouldn’t need a disguise if you were just meeting these people on a street somewhere, because most of you already dress like criminals. No offense.” 

“I think you mean rock stars,” Peter mumbles. “But okay.” Nobody else voices protest. 

“You’re meeting at a nice club,” Dey explains. “Really nice. So you’re going to need really nice clothes to match.”

“Is this nice?” Mantis asks earnestly, indicating the feather boa. 

“Um…” Dey is struggling to come up with a polite way to say hell no. 

Drax, who has never struggled with that in his life, laughs and says, “It is hideous!” 

Mantis wilts again for a moment, then looks down at her slippers, which are twinkling ridiculously. “What about these? They remind me of my antennae!”

“They are very nice,” says Dey, before Drax can comment again. “But! Just -- probably not the best for _this_ particular job, because we’ll want you to keep a lower profile than that.”

“They are slippers,” Drax points out, inexplicably apparently on Mantis’s side now. Or maybe it’s just his perpetual need to correct things that don’t conform to his unique brand of logic. “They do not add any height to her profile.”

Dey blinks, taking that in. “Well, that’s true, but--”

“Do you have shoes that make holes in the floor?” Drax interrupts, looking suddenly gleeful at that prospect. “That would give us all much lower profiles!”

Dey sighs. “No, it’s not -- You know what? We already chose options for all of you to select from. They’re on that rack in the corner.” He points.

“None of those shoes light up,” says Mantis, looking disappointed again. She glances at the ones she’s wearing and does a little kick.

“You know what?” says Dey again, in a voice Peter’s pretty sure he uses with his kid. “If you want, you can keep those ones after you get this job done. A gift.”

Mantis literally jumps up and down with glee. “Yay! I will find something to match!” Then she runs over to the rack of approved clothing. 

“But you’re not actually wearing them on the job!” Dey protests, and is ignored. 

“Don’t worry,” Peter tells Dey with more confidence than he feels, but it’s his usual refrain in these situations. “We’ll be fine.” 

Dey smirks. “You always say that.” 

Peter’s about to volley back with his customary, _”and we always are”_ , but then he catches himself, frowns. Not always; not anymore. 

Dey’s smile falters too, and his voice is gentle and definitely sad when he says, “You’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah.” Peter swallows. “Thanks, man.” Then he turns and heads over to the rack of clothing, where everyone besides Groot have already gathered, trying to squeeze around and reach over and duck under each other to sort through the clothes, even though hardly any of them wear similar sizes or styles. 

“I am _not_ wearing a dress,” Nebula says, wrinkling her nose as she flicks through the options. 

“I want the green one!” Mantis says, reaching for one Nebula just dismissed. 

“Why can I not just wear these pants?” Drax asks, pointing to his own. “They are perfectly acceptable.”

“They’re stained with blood and who knows what else,” Rocket says, throwing a pair of dress pants at his face. 

Drax shrugs. “We are supposed to be designers of weapons. Should we not appear formidable in battle?”

“You’re not going to appear anything if you get refused entry to the assigned rendezvous point for not wearing a shirt,” says Dey.

“If they try to refuse me,” says Drax, “I will simply fight my way in!”

“Dude,” says Peter. “Low profile, remember?” Out of the corner of his eye, he takes in Mantis putting on the green dress over her clothes, as well as Gamora quietly making her way toward one of the designated changing booths with a few items on hangers. 

“Oh!” says Drax. “ _Right._ ” He considers, looking for a moment as though he might actually see and accept Dey’s point. But then he shrugs again. “If they try to refuse me, I will crawl my way in!”

“Hey Drax!” Nebula interrupts, before either Peter or Dey can figure out a response that isn’t either a groan or hopeless laughter. She holds up a roll of black tape. “How about we use this?”

He frowns. “For my nipples?”

Now it’s her turn to smirk again. “For your mouth.”

Peter snorts, unable to stop himself. He doesn’t get to form his own retort, though, because Mantis interrupts with a delighted squeal.

“Oh! You look _beautiful!_ ”

He turns in the direction of her voice just in time to see Gamora -- and then he _still_ can’t say anything because now his jaw is on the floor.

He’s seen Gamora in dresses before, though it’s not common. Wasn’t common. Isn’t common. This also isn’t the most elaborate dress he’s ever seen her in, or the tightest, or the lowest cut or the most colorful. Far from it, in fact. It’s plain black and ankle-length; form-fitting but not skin tight, with a modest neckline. It does leave her shoulders and arms bare, and some of her collarbone is visible. 

It’s just been a while since he’d seen Gamora in a dress and god...she could be _his_ Gamora, the way she looks right now. Maybe she is. He still doesn’t know quite how to think of this whole situation. But he does know that she looks absolutely beautiful. It’s not wrong to think that, surely; even if she were totally different, she looks exactly the same as his Gamora, and Gamora is always beautiful. 

“Yes, you do,” Nebula says, though she rolls her eyes to maintain her aloof demeanor. But there’s a smile on her face. She knows how much Gamora secretly likes pretty things. 

“It feels impractical for fighting,” Gamora says. She’s holding herself stiffly. “But I suppose we are not planning to do any of that at this meeting.” Then she looks over at Peter, catches his eye, and he realizes he’s still gaping at her like a fish. She looks almost shy, which he can maybe only tell because he knows her so well. 

“It’s perfect,” Peter says firmly, earnestly. He means it, too. 

She flushes almost imperceptibly, looks down at the floor and clears her throat before looking back up again. “What about you? You’re the only one who hasn’t selected anything.”

He glances around and realizes that’s true. He’s gotten so distracted that he’s forgotten he even needed to for a moment. Turning to the rack, he sees that most of the clothes are dark in color, and made of expensive fabrics he’s pretty much never owned. 

There is one thing that’s a bit familiar, though, and he grabs it to hold up. “How ‘bout this?”

Gamora blinks at him. “It’s a leather jacket.”

He doesn’t see the problem with that. Yondu used to say there was a leather jacket for every occasion, and this one _was_ on the approved rack. “Yeah. So?”

“ _So_ you own roughly three dozen leather jackets,” Nebula says dryly. It’s an exaggeration, but not by much.

“Yeah, but I don’t own this one,” he points out.

“If I am going to wear this,” says Gamora, “then I would like to see you in a suit.” She rests one hand on her hip, more than a hint of challenge in her crooked little smile. But there’s something else, too, beneath the bravado. It’s that shyness, he thinks. Sincere desire. To have company in being utterly out of her element, he wonders? Or does she actually find the idea of him in a suit...appealing?

Either way, he’s suddenly feeling a lot more eager to try one on.

“Hold that thought!” says Peter, grabbing every one that’s still on the rack and having to restrain himself from practically sprinting toward the changing booth.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all our lovely commenters!!! <333

Peter’s doing his best not to shift uncomfortably, since he’s got to project a confident and comfortable aura for this job. It’s hard when the material of this shirt is so stiff and weird, the collar too tight at his neck and the buttons on the sleeve constricting his wrists. The jacket isn’t red _or_ leather, and it was nearly impossible to hide any weapons in these dumb pants. 

But when he’d come out of the dressing room back at the Nova Corps headquarters, Gamora had given him a once over and he’d seen that familiar something in her eyes; that something that means she likes what she sees. He’d glowed as if it was the first time she’d ever directed that look at him before. Which, it kind of was...and also wasn’t? He’s seen that expression on her face plenty of times before, but not that she remembers...or not that this one has… It’s weird. He’s not gonna think about it, because he’s got to focus. 

He’s keeping an eye out for the leaders of this organization they’re supposed to be meeting, though he has no idea what they look like. Dey had said the people would find _them_ , but maybe he was wrong about that. Being late for a meeting is a common power play, but this is pushing it a bit. 

Dey was definitely right about this place being fancy, though. Way nicer than what he’d have expected from this planet; Noweii isn’t exactly known for high society or fancy living. 

From the outside, this place had looked the same as the rest of the city that sprawls across every inch of the planet’s surface: grey, nondescript, covered in so much pollution that the whole thing feels vaguely like being at the bottom of a mud puddle, only without the water. Maybe in the middle of a dust storm, then. 

Inside is a whole different story, at least for this particular establishment, though he’s relatively certain it isn’t the norm. Not that he’s spent much -- okay, any -- time investigating other places on Noweii, but still. It reminds him a bit of the nicer establishments on Xandar, the ones he’s only ever looked in the windows of. Except it’s...well, even nicer. That really is the only way to capture it.

Across the room, Mantis and Drax are seated at the table nearest the door, ready to assist should violence break out. It’s probably best that they’re far away for now, though. Partly because Peter doesn’t even want to think about either one of them trying to hustle, and partly because Drax is downing expensive drinks so quickly that it’ll be a wonder if the Nova Corps doesn’t end up making _them_ pay for this job. Groot, too young to be allowed into this club, is waiting with the ship. 

“They are making us wait,” Gamora says. She’s sitting next to him, stirring the cocktail she refuses to actually drink with her straw while she looks around the room. 

“It’s just a negotiation tactic,” Peter says, then gets such an intense flashback to their first time on Knowhere that he feels that insane but familiar urge to cry and laugh at the same time. Instead, he ends up shooting her a weird grimace that makes her raise her eyebrows in concern, still recognizable even with her slight disguise. She’s wearing make-up that partially covers her scars, including the ones at her eyebrows, but she’s still the most gorgeous woman in the galaxy. Gamora always is. 

She’s also got her hair up in a high ponytail, a way she almost never wears her hair in public. It’s not like someone on say, Xandar, wouldn’t be able to recognize her as Gamora, but out here at the edge of the galaxy, where the Guardians of the Galaxy are practically unknown, it’s doubtful that anyone would recognize them even if they were standing in a full line-up with their names flashing above their heads. But still, Gamora and Nebula had made efforts to cover up their more distinguishing features. 

Nebula is even wearing a wig. Peter’s already snuck in a few pictures so he’ll have blackmail material for life. She’s also wearing a sleek black jumpsuit that looks shockingly good on her, equal parts deadly and elegant. He probably isn’t going to tell her that, though. She’s never been...good, exactly, at taking compliments.

“I don’t like this,” says Gamora, plucking the straw from her drink and then tossing it back in with a little flick of the wrist. It’s just a restless, nervous gesture but the impact is still strong enough that a few drops splash over the edge of the glass.

“Yeah,” says Rocket. “This is a snoozefest. When do we get to blow stuff up?”

“I did not mean I was bored,” says Gamora. “I meant that it feels -- wrong. Perhaps we have been discovered.”

“It’s fine,” says Peter, his voice low. He has to admit his own apprehension is growing, partly because he feels so out of his element in such an upscale setting, but also because Gamora’s strategic judgment tends to be excellent. If she thinks something is off, then...Well, to be fair, he has no way to know whether that’s still the same. So maybe he shouldn’t make too much out of it. “We should stop talking about it, though, or--”

“There,” says Nebula, pointing as the door of the club swings open and three tall figures enter. They’ve done absolutely nothing to identify themselves, yet it’s immediately obvious that they’re here for a meeting.

Peter raises his drink towards them with his Serious Business face on, a gesture of recognition he hopes they’ll understand. They seem to, as when they catch his eye they start heading for their table. 

“See?” he says under his breath. “Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not sure you can safely say that yet,” Gamora mutters. 

All three of them are wearing suits, though they seem to be made of a different material than Peter’s; they look soft and comfortable and like they wouldn’t be scratchy. Their skin is a pale purple color and they appear to be hairless, all of them bald, with no eyebrows or facial hair. Their features are so similar that they’re indistinguishable until they get close, and even then Peter thinks he’d have trouble remembering who is who. 

He also has no idea what their species is, which isn’t surprising, as they’re far from where they usually travel and there are billions of species in the galaxy, but it is inconvenient for this mission. He has no idea what kind of customs they have, what’s considered polite and impolite in their culture. 

They do remind him of the Sovereign, for some disconcerting reason he can’t really place. Maybe it’s the uniformity. 

As that gut feeling is all he has to go on, he decides to stand up when they reach their table, and thankfully the others follow his lead. 

“Hello,” he says. He doesn’t reach to shake their hands, and they don’t either. 

“Is your name Sam Malone?” the one in the middle asks. His voice is exactly as toneless as Peter would have guessed it would be. 

He barely restrains a grin; Dey had chosen a lot of things about this mission, but Peter had gotten to choose their fake names.

“Yes,” he says, still Super Serious. “These are my associates, Diane, Carla, and Norm.” He gestures to Gamora, Nebula, and Rocket in turn. 

Nebula sighs, clearly understanding the reference. Gamora doesn’t, of course, but she shoots a look at her sister, who rolls her eyes. Gamora seems to accept that commentary, a tiny smile playing across her lips. The whole thing takes barely more than a second, is probably imperceptible to their new acquaintances, but it still makes him swell a bit with pride. Turns out, that’s the last nice thing he feels for a while.

“And you are?” asks Rocket, when the strangers make no move to identify themselves. The one in the middle seems to be the only one who’s interested in communicating. Maybe the other two are just bodyguards. Or maybe they’re some type of hive mind, and the middle one is the only one with actual intelligence.

“We are the Sons of Thanos,” says the one in the middle, and Peter barely restrains a curse. That’s a name he never expected to hear in this context. Really never wanted to hear again under any circumstances, actually. 

He shoots a furtive, sidelong glance at Nebula, wondering how to read the situation. He’s never heard of Thanos having sons -- had remarked once to Gamora that that was kind of sexist, even. But he’s been gone for five years. Maybe he’s missed more than he realized.

He sees her hand clench at her side, thankfully underneath the table, and she’s definitely glaring at these people. It’s not that different from her normal expression, though, so he doesn’t think they’d be able to tell anything from it. Gamora, too, has reacted visibly, but again not in a way noticeable to anybody but him and probably Nebula. Her eyes have tightened, her posture stiffened; she’s nervous. He’s not sure if that’s just from hearing Thanos’ name or if she recognizations the organization. Either way, it doesn’t make him feel great. 

“You know he’s dead,” Rocket says, looking at the so-called “Sons” like they’re idiots. “Right?”

Peter wishes he could kick him without being noticed, as the three of them shift their gazes to Rocket simultaneously. Nothing about their expressions changes, but Peter could swear he can almost feel ice coming off of them. 

“We are aware,” the middle one says. “We are continuing his mission.”

“Right,” Peter says, his heart suddenly racing. This is an unexpected curve ball, a distraction for all of them and he’s got to get this back on track. They’re here to gather intel, to figure out what this organization is doing; though this is a pretty big clue, they’re going to need more information than this. “Please, sit down.” 

He gestures to the side of the booth across from them. They’d chosen a round booth so they’d be able to keep an eye on the entire club, but now Rocket has to scoot over so there’s room for all three of these people to sit down across from them. That puts him next to one of the Sons, which makes Peter both glad and apprehensive. _He_ certainly doesn’t want to be anywhere near them -- across the room would be too close, even -- but he’s worried about Rocket doing something rash. He’s also glad that Gamora is sitting between him and Nebula, wonders whether she’s considering bolting again. Then again, if she wanted to leave, Nebula might go with her…

_Focus,_ he chides himself, and turns back to the Sons. He decides to focus on the middle one, since they’ve given absolutely no indication that he should do anything else. He mentally names the dude Middle Son because he’s gotta call him something and, well, it’s obvious. 

“So,” says Peter, hating the slight tremor he can both feel and hear in his own voice. He clears his throat and wills the panic to stay where it belongs, in the pit of his stomach. It can’t choke him there. “Continuing--his mission?”

“Thanos accomplished much in his lifetime,” Gamora breaks in, before Middle Son can respond. Her voice is steady, he notices, with the painfully-familiar hard edge he now recognizes as a part of the facade Thanos had forced her to cultivate. “He had many missions. Of which do you speak?”

The Middle Son looks at her now, and Peter’s hit with the sudden urge to yell at him not to. Nothing about the dude’s expression changes that he can see, but there’s something about it directed at Gamora that he just doesn’t like. 

“To correct the universe,” Middle Son says. Then his gaze shifts to Peter again, which is unsettling but also a relief. “We were told you were capable of making a weapon that would help us accomplish that.”

“Psh,” Peter says with an ease he definitely does not feel. But hey, this is a Star-Lord specialty; he can hustle with the best of them. “Easy. Long as you got units, we got weapons.”

“We have gathered materials already,” Middle Son says. “Rare and powerful materials. It is unlikely that you have worked with many of them before.”

“Listen, you came to the right man,” Peter says. He leans back in the booth to help with his air of ease. “I can make a weapon out of anything. What do you want, a resume? A list of references? I don’t exactly carry around business cards.” Which is a lie, actually, but he doesn’t think his mostly-joke _’Star-Lord: Guardian of the Galaxy’_ business cards are going to help in this situation. 

Middle Son looks at the other two for the first time during this conversation. Again, Peter can discern nothing changing in their expressions, but something must pass between them because Middle Son turns back to him and says, “Make a weapon. Here. Now.”

Well, that certainly is another curveball. Peter's been expecting the Sons to have questions, to haggle over prices and to make him prove his supposed worth. That's how he's been planning to get more intel on their activities, after all. But while he can bullshit with the best of them -- better than the best of them, actually -- there's no way he's gonna be able to build an actual weapon right here in front of them. Nor would he really want to even if he could. Not when they could turn right around and use it on him and his team, though it's also not like he really thinks they're unarmed right now. 

Still, he decides to do something else he's really good at, which is stalling. 

"What, right here?" he scoffs. "And mess up the scenery? This place is expensive, man, I ain't made outta units."

Middle Son doesn't quite roll his eyes, but the energy of it is there. "If you win our interest, there will be more than enough units to compensate you for any...collateral expenses."

"And what if I don't?" asks Peter. "How do I know you're good for _your_ end of this deal? Oh, I'm sorry, _proposed_ deal. Should I ask you to pull some units out of your ass right now as proof?"

“We are not claiming to be able to create units,” Middle Son says flatly; not that everything he says isn’t flat, but this is flat with an attitude. “Merely to have them. You are claiming to be able to create weapons. We require proof if this is to go any further.”

Peter glances at the others, but they’re all looking at him. Rocket looks distinctly smug, and more than a little amused. He had argued against the idea that Peter was to pose as the weapons expert, seeing as Rocket is the true one. But Dey had decided that part of the plan, figuring--accurately--that Rocket doesn’t have the demeanor necessary to hustle like Peter does. 

Remembering that bolsters his confidence; he _is_ the master hustler, and he’s got his weapons expert right here, after all. 

“Fine,” he says haughtily, pulling out his holo. “Have it your way.” He writes a note out of sight of the Sons: _’Pretend I gave you the instructions and make a weapon out of something here or this whole mission is fucked’_. Then he passes it along to Rocket, saying, “Follow these directions, Norm.”

Rocket glares at him for a second, but thankfully he decides not to blow the job. “I’ll be right back,” he says, then shimmies under the table. 

“This is why I keep him around,” Peter tells the Sons with a smirk. “He’s small, and he’s got small hands. Good for sneaking around and working with small parts.”

It’s a struggle for him not to visibly react when Rocket bites his ankle under the table. He does feel a fresh surge of anger at that, though. Rocket _knows_ what’s at stake, knows what it means to be a member of this team, this family. And yet, more often than not lately...His thoughts stray to Knowhere for the millionth time, to the fact that Rocket wasn’t there, that maybe if he had been--

“He is also excellent at following orders,” says Nebula, interrupting that torturous train of thought. He’ll have to thank her later for that, he thinks.

Gamora smirks, then picks up her glass to cover it, pretending to take a sip. If Peter didn’t know better, he’d think she actually had. 

“Definitely,” Peter agrees brightly. He has no idea how long Rocket will need to get the job done, though he has no doubt that he’ll be able to do it, unless he somehow decides not to. Decides to screw them all over, which...would he? Five years -- which feel like a few days -- ago, he would have been sure Rocket wouldn’t. But now...Suddenly he’s unsure of anything around him. 

“He’s the most obedient assistant we’ve ever had,” says Nebula, clearly enjoying this, probably more than she should under the circumstances. “Then again, what good is an animal without a master?”

Peter’s not sure if Rocket heard that, but judging by the way he glares at them when he comes back a few moments later, tail ruffled and a small bomb in his hand, he might have. Then again, that could just as easily be annoyance over the whole situation.

“Thank you,” Peter says genuinely when Rocket hands him the bomb, then crawls back under the table to his seat. Nebula turns to glare at him when he does, and Peter’s pretty sure she’s been on the receiving end of a bite this time. 

“Happy now?” Peter asks, showing the Sons the bomb. It doesn’t look as sophisticated or powerful as the stuff Rocket usually makes, some odd-looking parts sticking out, obviously improvised from materials he had available. He’s pretty sure he sees part of a fork in there, and he’s willing to bet there’s a kitchen in this place that’s now missing some important parts. 

“We require a demonstration,” Middle Son says, not showing any emotions at all, much less happiness. 

Peter snorts. “What, you want me to blow up the table?” 

“Not this one,” Middle Son says. “But something. We must know that it works.”

Peter glances at the others; he hadn’t been anticipating this, though he supposes he should have. Rocket is certainly never hesitant to blow things up, and Nebula looks unconcerned, but Gamora seems a little apprehensive. He’s trying to convince her they’re heroes; he can’t exactly blow up a building full of civilians. 

And there are a lot of them around. The place has just gotten busier since they’ve been talking, though he hasn’t paid much attention to anyone who isn’t at their table. Hell, he’s even mostly lost track of Mantis and Drax. He tells himself he shouldn’t look over at them as he suddenly remembers, shouldn’t give them away. Instead he makes himself scan the room again like he’s trying very hard to decide where to detonate the bomb, what will best demonstrate its power. Drax is eating a plate of something fried, he notes, as his eyes sweep across them. And Mantis is apparently finding that hilarious. Typical.

“This bomb has way too big a blast radius to demonstrate in here,” says Peter, hoping against hope that that’s true. It’s not like Rocket to make wimpy bombs. “Killing all these people might help a bit with your mission, but I ain’t about to pay for damages. Plus, I can’t design you a bigger weapon if I get arrested right here and now.” He hopes he doesn’t actually turn green with nausea at having to pretend he wants anything at all to do with ‘balancing’ the universe or anything else Thanos-adjacent.

“I am beginning to think you are stalling,” says Middle Son. “It is not a good look.”

“Yeah, c’mon,” Rocket says, apparently amused by this. “What are we waiting for? Let’s demonstrate.” 

Peter tries to glare at him without making it too obvious. As he does, a door in the back of the club catches his eye and gives him an idea. 

“All right, fine,” he says, rolling his eyes as if this is a minor inconvenience rather than a major stress. “But we’re going outside where we can blow up something less expensive than the crap in here.”

Middle Son looks at the other two again, then says, “That is acceptable.”

“Let’s go out back,” Peter says, nodding to the door. 

“Lead the way,” Middle Son says. 

He does, pretty much counting on Gamora and Nebula to keep an eye on the Sons for him. He also tries to send Gamora a reassuring look, as he can tell she’s uncomfortable with this whole situation, but he can’t manage to catch her eye. He doesn’t dare try to signal to Drax and Mantis all the way across the club; he just has to hope they’re paying enough attention to realize where they’re going. 

At the back of the club is a door he’d spotted earlier, and outside is exactly what he’d hoped. It’s a back alley that looks much more befitting of this planet than the inside of the club does, with its two large dumpsters that look like they haven’t been emptied in a month or cleaned in a decade. There’s no other life forms back here except a couple Orloni scampering around. 

Figures, he thinks. He's pretty sure there isn't a single planet in the whole damn galaxy that hasn't been infested by Orloni at this point. Hell, they're probably even on Earth. The things multiply faster than Liri IV's demon monkeys and they could probably survive most forms of the apocalypse. That gives him an idea. 

"Okay," he says grandly. "See that dumpster? It's made out of metal, right? How thick you think the walls of it are?"

Middle Son wrinkles his nose in clear disgust. "I have no interest in speculating."

Peter shrugs. "Okay, then I will. I'd say definitely at least like--" He starts to give a measurement, then realizes he has no idea what system they use. Instead he demonstrates with two fingers. "At least like this thick."

"Stop stalling," Middle Son repeats. 

"Hey," Peter says with a nonchalance he doesn't feel. "You don't wanna hear about the science of this? Fine by me." He depresses what he's pretty sure is the activation pin and chucks the bomb into the top of the dumpster. 

For a moment, nothing happens. 

“Well?” Middle Son asks, and for once he’s showing some form of emotion. They all are. It’s not much, but there’s definite amusement in their expressions, the tiniest quirk of their lips. There’s smugness too, grating at Peter’s nerves. He wonders how he’s going to salvage this, if Rocket failed, maybe even intentionally. 

“Perhaps the walls are too thick?” Middle Son continues. He steps closer to the dumpster, the other Sons following as they always seem to, and taps his knuckles against the outside. “A powerful weapons designer who cannot even blow up--”

He’s interrupted by a loud _boom!_ The walls of the dumpster blow out dramatically, knocking the Sons to the ground. Garbage and pieces of metal spew out in all directions, so high up into the sky it’s impressive, and fall to cover the Sons head to toe. 

Peter bursts out laughing; he and the others are standing far enough back to have avoided the spray and he can’t help but think something finally went right about this. Rocket is cackling too, and Nebula is more quietly amused. Gamora still just looks worried. 

“Perhaps you just need to learn a little patience,” Peter says, letting his own smugness and amusement shine through in his voice, as the Sons stand up and brush themselves off as best they can. 

The Sons look back and forth at one another, exchange one of those glances that’s absolutely inscrutable from the outside, yet somehow seems to communicate so much between them. They’re definitely some kind of a hive mind, Peter decides. Or maybe telepaths who can only communicate telepathically within their own species. That would be about the right level of stupid for anything pertaining to them.

“You’re deplorable,” says Middle Son. His suit is spattered with some particularly juicy bits of rotting garbage, and there’s what appears to be this planet’s equivalent of a dead banana peel sitting atop his head.

Peter can’t quite keep the grin off his face, though on some level he’s aware that he’s treading in dangerous territory. “Well hey, coming from the dude whose mission is to commit genocide, I think I’d say I’m in good company. You _wanted_ somebody deplorable, right? That was the whole point of this demonstration.” He narrowly bites back on a yelp when Nebula steps on his foot with the stiletto heel she’s wearing.

“We are done here,” says Middle Son, angrily knocking the banana peel to the ground. “We’ve seen quite enough of your _skills_ , Mr. Malone. And they are not what we are looking for.”

“Hey!” Peter says, humor melting away instantly. He can already hear yelling coming from inside, as apparently the people in the building have noticed that there was a giant explosion outside. He knows he doesn’t exactly have much time for negotiation, but he can’t just let these assholes get away with slighting their skills. “You just saw us make a weapon out of random shit in a matter of minutes! What more do you want?”

“It is of no concern to you,” Middle Son says haughtily. “If you will excuse us.” Then he and the other two turn their backs and walk calmly away from the dumpster. 

Peter’s got half a mind to pick up the banana peel and chuck it at their heads, but then he feels Gamora’s hand on his arm. “Come on, we better get out of here.” She nods her head towards the building, where, now that he’s paying attention, he can hear the sound of footsteps heading towards this area. “We can re-group later.”

“Okay, let’s go,” he says. He’ll pretty much always listen to Gamora, no matter what, he thinks. “Drax and Mantis will catch up.” 

“Way to go, loser,” Rocket says, as they hurry away from the scene of the crime. “Way to blow the whole mission.”

Peter guffaws. “What do you want from me? I did exactly what they asked!”

“You covered them in garbage on purpose,” Nebula says. 

“I did not!” he protests. “It was a nice bonus, though, those bastards deserved it. And what else was I supposed to blow up?”

“I am not surprised they said no,” Gamora says darkly. She exchanges a meaningful look with her sister. “What are the chances they did not know who we truly are?” 

“Slim to none,” says Nebula, sighing. “I am surprised they entertained us as long as they did. When they identified themselves, I thought for certain they would attack us. We may be fortunate that all they did was turn us down, particularly when we all but _handed_ them a weapon.”

“Wait,” says Peter, struggling to follow their conversation. “The Guardians aren’t known out here, Dey told us that. Why would he know who we are?” 

He didn’t used to mind when they would talk in this half-code of theirs, when it would seem as though _they_ were almost reading each other’s minds. But now he feels a surge of irritation, of not quite jealousy. The difference before, he realizes, was that he was confident he knew Gamora better than anyone else, even Nebula. Now that’s not true anymore. Or maybe it never was.

“Not the Guardians, idiot,” Nebula says derisively. Her tone right now is almost as bad as Middle Son’s. “ _Us._ Former daughters of Thanos.” She gestures back and forth between herself and Gamora, as if that wasn’t perfectly clear now, as if he really is a moron. 

“Daughters who betrayed him,” Gamora adds.

“Oh,” Peter says, feeling dumb. “Did you _know_ them?” 

“I did not,” Gamora says, then glances at Nebula, who thankfully shakes her head. If they’d actually known them, there’d be a zero percent chance of them not being screwed. 

“We never met them,” Nebula says. “But there were many… _are_ those who sympathize with Thanos and his cause. I am not surprised by their existence.” 

“Great,” Rocket says irritably. “So we were screwed from the beginning? We shoulda just shot them right there at the table, soon as we found out who they were!”

“Yeah, that would’ve gotten us a ton of intel.” Peter rolls his eyes. Though he has to admit--to himself, never out-loud to Rocket--that that would have been satisfying. 

“Would’ve saved us some wasted time!” Rocket sneers. 

“Hush!” Gamora says, and for a second Peter thinks it’s because she’s defending him. But then he sees that she and Nebula are both looking around, on high alert. 

“What?” Rocket asks derisively. 

“Shut up,” Nebula hisses. Peter looks around too, remembering the last time they heard something he didn’t. They’re on a fairly narrow street right now, surrounded by buildings that are either abandoned or _should_ be. There’s no one around that he can see, but that doesn’t really mean anything. 

“Aw, shit,” Rocket mutters, and Peter’s head snaps around to see where he’s looking. Some purple people are emerging from an alley between two buildings; Peter barely has time to take them in before his attention is drawn to the same thing happening a few buildings over, and on their other side too, and from behind, and in a matter of seconds they’re absolutely surrounded. 

“Don’t bother,” a voice says from behind him when he goes to reach for his blaster. He turns once again, and the last thing Peter registers before he’s suddenly on the ground is that the Middle Son is standing right in front of him, and he’s definitely smirking as he sprays something in his face that makes everything go dark.

* * *

Peter’s first thought on waking is that this is the worst hangover he’s ever had. Which is really saying something, given his Ravager upbringing. But his head is fucking _pounding_ so hard he’s pretty sure it might actually explode, might splatter brains all over...wherever he’s managed to pass out. Which he can’t remember, so that’s another thing contributing to the worst hangover ever theory. 

Keeping his eyes glued closed doesn’t seem to be doing anything to make him feel better, though, so probably he ought to force himself to get up, to figure out where he is and how the hell he can get some damn pain meds. That’s easier decided than done, though, because his eyes seem to be glued shut. He groans, runs a hand across them, and finally manages to peel them open. It takes him another long moment to blink the world into focus, but when he does, he can’t help smiling, some of the discomfort and ire melting away. Gamora is leaning over him, searching his face with unmistakable concern. And her hand is under his head, he realizes, her fingers massaging the back of his neck with a tenderness that’s so achingly familiar.

“Hey,” he breathes, then can’t come up with anything else to say.

“How are you feeling?” Gamora asks quietly. 

“Terrible,” he says. Looking at her makes him feel a little better, he doesn’t say. She still looks concerned. And her hair is up...it’s not normally up. “Am I dreaming?”

He hears Rocket snort, and turns his head slowly to look at him. “If you are, I wish you’d wake the hell up.” Peter blinks, trying to process what he’s seeing. Rocket is standing just a couple feet away, examining some glowing blue bars that go from floor to ceiling. On his other side is Nebula, glaring at said bars...then there’s a wall...then another wall… Aw, fuck, they’re in a cell. 

He looks back up at Gamora. She’s apparently realized what she was doing with her hand and has now stilled it. He wishes she hadn’t. Then he feels bad for wishing that; then he feels bad for feeling bad. 

“What the hell happened?” he asks. He doesn’t move his head because he’s not entirely sure he can. Also, he really doesn’t want to. 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Gamora asks. 

“Those--fucking assholes,” he groans, as the images start coming back. “They had...something.”

“They were waiting to ambush us,” Gamora says. Her lips are pulled tight; she’s irritated. And concerned. “They had something that knocked us all out.”

“You’ve been out for three days,” Rocket says.

“What?” Peter exclaims, sitting up quickly in shock, which makes him so dizzy he’s afraid he might pass out again. 

“It has only been several hours,” Gamora says, shooting a glare at Rocket, who’s smirking.

“Fuck,” breathes Peter. He lifts a hand to scrub it over his face, but that means that he has one fewer hands supporting himself, which means that suddenly he’s having trouble balancing as the room swims around him. 

For a moment he’s certain that he’s going to fall and crack his skull against the floor, but he can’t quite manage the coordination to stop it from happening. Then Gamora catches him with an arm around his shoulders, which is fortunate in more ways than one. He decides that maybe it’s not so bad Rocket made him sit up this way after all, especially when she keeps her arm there, apparently afraid he’s going to fall again. Which is a valid concern.

“We were getting worried that your system wasn’t able to handle the toxins,” says Gamora. “That perhaps you needed medical attention.”

“Hey, speak for yourself,” says Rocket. “I wasn’t worried. Humies are like Orloni. They _look_ weak and disgusting, but they’re awful stubborn about dying.”

“I’m gonna remind you that you said that the next time you call me weak,” says Peter. He’s _pretty_ sure he’s not having any kind of life-threatening reaction, but he’d give a whole lot of units for a glass of water and a real bed right about now.

“What, that I called you a disgusting Orloni?” Rocket shrugs. “By all means, please do.”

“Will you hush?” Nebula hisses. The first words she’s spoken since he woke up, of course they’re spoken with a glare. She’s taken her wig off, as obviously disguises are useless at this point. “They have come by several times waiting to see if you’ve woken up yet.” She gestures vaguely to the glowing bars. 

“Why?” Peter asks. 

“They know who Nebula and I are,” Gamora answers in a whisper. She’s still got her arm around him. “But not you and Rocket.”

“Figures,” Peter mutters. Assholes knock him out and they don’t even know who he is.

“That means they think you are an actual weapons expert,” Nebula points out. 

“Oh,” Peter says. He decides to take pride in that. “Well, of course they do. I’ve got the best hustle in the galaxy.”

“Please,” Rocket snorts. “It was my bomb that did it.”

“That you built as part of my idea--” Peter starts, then sees the way both Gamora and Nebula are glaring at him. He sighs. “Whatever. Let’s focus on getting out of here, huh?”

“As usual, I’ve taken care of everything,” Rocket says. Nebula smacks him and he glares at her. “Fine. I’ve taken care of everything with a little help from the cyborg. _We_ sent a message to the others with our coordinates. They should be here any minute.”

“How did you do that?” Peter asks. As far as he can tell, there’s absolutely nothing in this cell he could have used to build a communication device, and the Sons couldn’t have been stupid enough to leave them with their holos. 

“They may know who I am,” Nebula says. “But they apparently do not know how much of me is machine.” She taps her arm, where Peter knows there’s a commlink embedded under the skin. 

“So they should be coming soon,” says Peter, fully aware that Rocket’s just said basically the exact same thing. That’s a relief, because he’s definitely not in the mood to deal with the Sons again, and especially not to fight them. For a moment his mind wanders to the image of trying to do that with Gamora’s arm still around his shoulders in support, and he has to bite back on a slightly hysterical laugh.

“That is assuming that Mantis and Drax realize they are receiving a message from us,” says Nebula, sounding significantly less optimistic than he feels. “And know what to do with it if they do.”

Gamora turns to look at her, frowning. She _still_ doesn’t drop her arm, though, and Peter is trying really hard not to be pleased about that, or not to think about how pleased he is by it, or--

“I’ll grant you they are not the most strategic beings I have ever met,” says Gamora. “But why would you doubt their ability to receive a message?”

Nebula sighs, and now Peter is uncomfortably aware of her glaring at him. “Well, perhaps Quill can remind us all how many messages _I_ had to send the last time I was trying to get their attention.”

Peter freezes, feeling like ice has dropped into the pit of his stomach. And also like he wants to throw it up. The blinking yellow light, Mantis and Drax both ignoring it, Nebula’s message...Gamora gone, probably already--

“We may be screwed,” he says, trying to sound as casual as he can; he probably fails, since it comes out as a slightly hoarse whisper. Maybe he can pass that off as just trying to be quiet. 

Rocket and Gamora both look confused, but neither of them ask. Gamora’s arm is still around his shoulders and Peter has the sudden thought that he doesn’t deserve it. 

“Well, I guess we better figure out a way outta this cell,” Rocket says. He throws what looks like a small hunk of metal, one of the only things besides floor and wall in this cell, at one of the bars. It gets shot back towards him with a violent _buzz_ and he has to duck to avoid it. 

Then Peter feels Gamora tense against him, and he thinks it’s because of Rocket’s antics; but a second later, he hears it too: footsteps. 

“I assure you,” an annoyingly familiar voice says, as Middle Son, followed by a lot of other Sons, step into view in front of the bars, “that will be impossible. Even for a weapons expert, and the daughters of Thanos.”

“Hey!” says Peter, the guilt that’s been roiling in the pit of his stomach transforming immediately into resentment. He’s _pissed_ at them for putting his team in this situation, for their casual dismissal of his efforts, his worth. Plus the small detail of them being Thanos sympathizers. That detail alone makes him want to punch them all in their purple faces. “Hey assholes! What are you sure we can’t do?”

Middle Son looks down his nose at Peter, everything about his demeanor communicating a smirk, though his actual lips manage not to move. “Escape your containment. Which I notice you did not, in fact, do.”

“He’s unwell,” says Gamora, her arm tightening protectively around his shoulders, which immediately swings him back toward guilt again in a really nauseating way. “Can you not at least give us access to water?”

“In due time,” says Middle Son, still with that infuriating, smug calm. 

“You know,” says Peter, “I like Thanos’s daughters a hell of a lot better than his sons.”

“His daughters are traitors,” says Middle Son. “Which I assume you know. Not that that is so surprising. One of Thanos’s only shortcomings was his belief that women could be useful to him.”

Peter sees red, and it’s only the fact that he’s not sure he can move keeping him from lunging at the smug bastard. Well, that and the electric cell bars. And the fact that Gamora and Nebula could kick this guy’s ass way better than he could. Nebula definitely looks like she wants to. 

“They’ll be real useful in killing you,” he says savagely instead, which only seems to amuse the Sons more. Not that their expressions change much, but he can just _tell_.

“I think not,” Middle Son says. Then all the sudden every one of the Sons has whipped a blaster out, so there’s about a dozen of them pointed at Peter and the others’ heads. 

“You are coming with us, Malone,” Middle Son says. “Or whatever your name actually is. And you are going to make a weapon for us.”

“Yeah?” Peter asks, really wishing he had his own blaster right now. Of course the bastards took that after they knocked him out. “What the hell makes you think that?”

Middle Son definitely smirks. “I was hoping you’d ask. I will be more than happy to show you why.” He looks at the others. “If any of you besides him move, you are dead.” Then back to Peter again. “Get up.”

“He is unwell!” Gamora repeats angrily, her arm still around him. She looks like she’s thinking of taking her chances and lunging at Middle Son. As much as Peter would love to see her kick his ass, he would love to see her not get shot even more. The thought makes his stomach roil.

“I’ll be fine,” he assures her. He looks her in the eyes, sees the concern and the genuine fear in hers. “Really. I can handle this.” 

She doesn’t let go for another long moment, still holding his gaze intensely before she finally speaks, her tone low enough that only he can hear it. Well, and probably Nebula. “If you die, I will find you and kill you myself.”

For a moment he has the crazed urge to tell her that he loves her, because in this instant he knows it with absolute certainty. This _is_ Gamora, she has never been more herself than she is _right now_ , Thanos and timelines and Infinity Stones be damned. She is Gamora and he loves her irrevocably, like he never even had a choice.

“ _Move_ , Malone!” Middle Son interrupts, sharp voice breaking into the grip of sudden emotion that’s seemed to paralyze him. “Right now, or she dies first!”

“I’ll be fine!” Peter repeats quickly, then gently lifts Gamora’s arm off his shoulders, squeezing her hand before letting go entirely. He feels the loss of contact immediately and immensely, both the reassuring warmth of her presence and the physical support she was providing. 

It’s a struggle getting to his feet but he manages it, lurching toward the bars. There’s no door, he sees immediately, which seems to be a rather poor design.

“Okay,” he drawls, crossing his arms with a nonchalance he doesn’t feel. “What now?”

One of the Sons, the one closest to him and the edge of the bars, takes a cylindrical device no larger than a finger and points it at the first bar by the wall. An orange laser shoots out of the end of it and seems to attach, sliding several bars to the side like a curtain until there’s room for a body to get through.

“Now, move,” Middle Son commands. 

He does, stumbling a bit as his body isn’t in super great communication with his brain right now. Once he’s through, he immediately feels two of the Sons roughly grab his arms, one each, to restrain him. That ends up jerking him around a bit, adding to the woozy feeling in his head and the roiling in his stomach, so that a moment later, with a groan, he curls forward and vomits onto Middle Son’s shoes. 

Peter grins, hearing Rocket’s uproarious laughter and relishing in the offended look Middle Son seems unable to repress. “I feel a little better now,” he informs him. Then he winks at Gamora, hoping to ease her fear, but she looks, if possible, more worried. 

“Take him to the chamber,” Middle Son practically yells, and the two men holding him start dragging him away from the cell. 

“Yeesh, already?” Peter says in a light tone. “We just met. Buy a guy dinner first.” 

“I believe you just decorated my associate with your dinner,” says one of the other Sons, which makes Middle Son look distinctly annoyed. Peter decides that he hates this guy very slightly less. Funny Son, he decides for this one, mainly because it sounds like it would piss off Middle Son.

“Nah,” says Peter, keeping up the bravado though they’re well out of earshot of the others now. Even Gamora’s enhanced ears. He tries not to think about what she’s doing now, what she’ll do if he doesn’t make it out of this alive, whether she’d feel that loss like-- “That was lunch. I skipped dinner, actually, because _somebody_ kidnapped me before I could order anything.”

“If you want sustenance,” says Middle Son, “you will have to earn it. We will not be _buying_ you anything, and the _first_ thing you will do is prove your continued worth to us.”

Peter sighs. It’s not like he expected this asshole to have any sense of or appreciation for humor, but still. “I didn’t mean -- It’s a figure of speech. Like, if you’re gonna -- You know what? Nevermind.” It occurs to him that he doesn’t want to give the Sons any ideas.

He’s dragged down a dim and featureless hallway, and it suddenly occurs to him that they must be on a ship. It reminds him simultaneously of the Eclector and the descriptions he’s heard from Gamora of Sanctuary. He wonders if the Sons ever actually saw that ship, if they ever actually met Thanos, or if they’re just a weird fan club. 

“I love the decor,” Peter says. “Very edgy. Who designed this place?”

“We did,” Middle Son says, either ignoring or refusing to acknowledge his sarcasm. 

“If you guys are so good at making shit, why don’t you make your own doomsday weapon?” Peter asks. “Seems like it would save you a lot of time. I’m sure all this ambushing and capturing people doesn’t give you a ton of free time.”

“The type of weapon we desire requires an expert,” Middle Son says. “Which is where you come in.”

They turn a corner, and suddenly the hall dead ends into a large, circular room that must be the Chamber. Like with the hallway, it reminds Peter of a mash up of things, this time a combination of the evil laboratories of Terran television and the Collector’s. There’s a couple of workbenches, surrounded by containers displaying various materials and types of weapons, perhaps their various unsuccessful attempts at making their own. 

"Wow," says Peter, looking around and making a show of it for their benefit. He has no idea what most of this stuff is, of course -- and he doesn't even want to think about some of it, like the shelf full of weird, grotesque things floating in jars at the far end of the room. Still, he has the sense that it would be a very bad idea for him to give up the ruse of being a weapons designer. While it might get him off the hook here, there's not much to stop the Sons from just killing him and all of the others. 

"Does it suit your needs?" asks Middle Son, his tone holding the strong implication that the only correct answer is yes. 

Peter shrugs. "I mean, it is impressive. Not quite as impressive as actual Thanos was, but you're trying."

"You met him?" Funny Son pipes back up, confirming his theory that they have no real concept of the evil they're trying to emulate. 

Peter scoffs. "Dude. I dated his daughter." The past tense stings, but it's still worth it.

"His traitor daughter," says Middle Son. 

Peter shrugs. "Well he definitely had one thing you guys don't."

Funny Son looks eager. "What's that?"

Peter can't help grinning. "Infinity Stones. Duh."

“We do not require you to recreate the Infinity Stones,” Middle Son says. He throws a glare at Funny Son, or as close to a glare as he can get without his expression changing. “Merely to create the most powerful weapon possible without them.”

“Gee, is that all?” Peter mutters. 

Another of the Sons suddenly appears with a pair of shoes in his hands, identical to the ones they’re all wearing. Peter smirks as Middle Son toes off the ones still covered in his vomit. 

“You can do it, can you not?” Middle Son asks. 

“Sure I can,” he says casually. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna do it without getting paid.”

“Consider your payment your life,” Middle Son says dramatically. 

“Hmm, but how can I design your weapon if I’m dead?” Peter points out, still smirking. “So your threat’s pretty empty there.”

“We anticipated resistance,” Middle Son says. He sounds satisfied, like he _wanted_ it rather than just expected it. Then he nods at one of the other Sons, who leaves their little huddle and goes off to the side. Peter tries to watch him out of the corner of his eye, but then Middle Son nods again at the two Sons holding Peter’s arms, and suddenly they’re pulling him farther into the room. 

"Hey!" says Peter, immediately disliking this. He kinda wishes he hadn't already puked, because if he had anything left, it might have made a good makeshift weapon, or at least a good diversion to get them to let him go. "You know, it's also gonna be hard to make a weapon for you if you beat me up. That kinda work requires, like, dexterity and shit. Wouldn't want me to slip and blow this whole place up just because you broke my knuckles." 

He's figuring torture was their intended threat, because what else would they be planning to do? Certainly not bribe him, if they're not even willing to pay. This is about scaring or brainwashing him into being their pawn. Joke's on them, though, because there's absolutely no physical pain they could possibly cause him that's worse than the emotions of the past few weeks. So he's not too worried. 

"He has a point," says Middle Son, as the ones holding him near the far side of the room. "Be sure you do not damage his hands as you apply the restraints."

“Restraints?” Peter asks. Then he looks up, and there’s several metal orbs hanging from the ceiling, attached by strings of orange light. They remind him a bit of the orb that the Power Stone had first been contained in, so many years ago. 

Helpless to stop them without his weapons, weak and outnumbered as he is, he just has to watch as the Sons open up the orbs and enclose his hands and feet in them, leaving him trapped on his knees on the floor. They’re not exactly hurting his hands right now, though when he tries to move them the edges do scrape unpleasantly against his wrists. 

“This is also pretty counter-productive to me making a weapon,” Peter points out, though he’s just said he has no plans to do that for them. Still, he’s gotta try everything he can. All he has to do is buy Drax and Mantis and Groot enough time to get here… or for Rocket to figure out a way to open up the cell. He’s kind of putting his units on the latter. 

Middle Son ignores his bait, though, and just asks, “Have you ever heard of Xurcoils?” 

“Sure, went there just last week,” Peter lies. He has no idea whether it’s a place or a person or what.

“I did not think so,” Middle Son says. One of the Sons has brought him a large jar with what looks like a really freaky octopus floating inside it. Its eyes are glowing.

“Oh!” says Peter, wondering vaguely whether they’re planning to try and torture him with that thing or if maybe he’s supposed to try and make a weapon out of it somehow. Both options make a bubble of hysterical laughter expand in the pit of his stomach, and he swallows it down. He definitely has the distinct impression that laughing at them right now would be a bad thing to do. “Sorry, right. A Xurcoils, of course. We’ve got those things on Earth, my homeworld.”

Middle Son looks skeptical, nothing more than a change in his eyes, yet still clearly communicated. “On Terra? Surely not. The Xurcoils is an extremely rare specimen, found only on the farthest edge of the galaxy, and even then it is unclear where their native habitat lies. Some say they are born at the center of black holes. Others say they are gods of a sort.”

Peter looks at the thing, trying to picture how any of that could be true. Sure, the critter is creepy, but a god? A god in a jar? Then again, he’s enjoying the way he’s getting Middle Son to monologue. It’s a great way to waste time. He shrugs as best he can in the restraints. “Sure we do. They’re called octopuses there. Or -- wait, I think it was octopi. I dunno, I was never that great at spelling.”

Middle Son seems to be aggravated now, which feels almost as satisfying to Peter as vomiting onto his shoes. “It is not an octopus!” he says, his tone losing some of its flatness. “Xurcoils are rare creatures that feed off of the electrical impulses of other species’ central nervous systems.”

Peter shrugs as best he can in the restraints. “How do you know Terran octopuses can’t do that?” For all he knows, they _do_. Not like he remembers what every creature on Earth was. 

“Because we hunted the galaxy just to find one of them,” Middle Son says. “We know exactly where they can be found.”

“Okay, fine,” Peter says patronizingly, as though he’s humoring him. “And what exactly is this definitely-not-an-octopus supposed to do? Get me all slimy until I agree to make a weapon for you?”

Middle Son smirks, as do a couple of the others. It’s a little unnerving, though Peter refuses to let that show. “This Xurcoils is special, actually,” Middle Son says proudly. He begins unscrewing the lid of the jar. “We have spent months modifying it into a special kind of tool; a mental torture device. We call it The Will of Thanos.”

Peter snorts. “Well, the thing is almost as ugly as Thanos was, so I guess that’s fitting.” 

Funny Son looks decidedly betrayed now, like he’d started to kind of like Peter or something, only to find out now that he thinks his idol looked like a scrotum-faced grape. He takes a couple angry steps toward Peter. “You dare disrespect our Titan--”

“Enough,” says Middle Son, putting out an arm and shoving him back into line -- or at least back to where the other Sons are standing in a little group, one of less authority than Middle Son himself possesses. Then he turns back to Peter. “I am beginning to think that you are not in agreement with our cause.”

Peter makes a thoughtful face, pretending to consider very hard. “Well...I definitely agree with you that Thanos was the evilest, most twisted, powerful bastard I ever met. I just also happen to think his face looked like a smelly nut sack.” He shrugs again, still trying for casual, nonchalant. Trying not to think about how slimy that thing in the jar would feel pressed up against his skin. “Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.”

Middle Son fairly seethes, his face finally molding into an actual scowl. “You are going to regret that. In fact, you are going to regret a great many things once you are subjected to the Will of Thanos!”

“Eh,” says Peter, trying not to think about Knowhere or Titan, even as he makes reference to those experiences. “Been there, done that.”

“That is the beauty of the Will of Thanos,” Middle Son says. “It knows what you have _been there_ and _done_. It makes you relive your most regretful, guilty memories; those that make you feel the worst, over and over. It has driven several people to irreversible insanity.” 

He looks distinctly pleased by that. He’s never seemed more similar to Thanos than he does now, the sadistic bastard. Peter wishes he could punch him in the dumb, smug face, and can’t quite keep the hatred off his own. The Sons are clearly just planning to torture him for the hell of it now, out of some twisted sense of revenge for insulting their idol. He feels nauseous again...there’s probably nothing left in his stomach to throw up, though. 

“How exactly is driving me insane gonna help with the whole weapon thing?” he tries, somewhat desperately. There’s a lot of memories he’s been having trouble _not_ reliving the past couple weeks, but he has a feeling they’re gonna feel a lot worse when they’re amplified by this monster. If it’s bad enough to drive people insane…

“We’ll just have to see,” Middle Son says savagely. He hands the lid off to one of the other Sons and reaches into the jar, pulling the creature out by it’s slimy, squishy head. Once it’s out of containment, it’s tentacles start thrashing about wildly, angrily, as if it’s searching for something to latch onto. 

Peter takes a deep breath, tries to come up with some other smart ass thing to say, some other way to stall. But suddenly he feels dizzy again, feels the panic floating up from the pit of his stomach like a phantom of the vomit he can’t seem to actually conjure up now. Middle Son is advancing rapidly toward him with the creature in hand, but his thoughts are moving faster still, so fast that the approach seems to be in slow motion. Will it be Knowhere that he relives, he wonders? Or Titan? Or will it be something even more recent, like the dreams of Gamora saying he’s replaced her? Maybe if he’s really lucky, he’ll die of a heart attack right now and then he won’t have to find out.

“No you won’t,” Gamora’s voice cuts in. 

For a moment Peter is so disoriented that he thinks it’s come from inside his own head -- that it’s just wishful thinking or that maybe he’s finally so completely lost it that he’s begun hallucinating her. But then he sees the small huddle of Sons part and turn around in shock, sees her standing at the back of the room, sword in hand.

Middle Son whirls around too, glaring at her, furious. “ _What_ did you say?”

She smirks, uses the flat of her sword to knock the first couple Sons out of her way as she begins to make her way through them. “I said no, you will _not_ see what happens by subjecting him to that _thing._ ”

Middle Son is basically raging now, all previous composure and lack of expression completely evaporated into one of pure fury. “You’re right,” he growls. “Not without seeing what happens to _you_ first.”

“No!” Peter yells. God, this is so much worse; he shouldn’t have tried to stall, he should have just let them put the damn creature on his head in the first place. “Gamora, no! That thing--”

“Is not getting near you!” she says fiercely. Then she lets out a battle cry, one that’s so familiar to him. He’s too busy panicking right now for that familiarity to make him ache though. 

“No, Gamora!” he tries again, but he’s drowned out by the yells of Nebula and Rocket as they run in and join the fray. Gamora has started slicing her sword in earnest, trying to get at Middle Son, who is also attempting to move towards her, but there’s suddenly so much fighting going on. Nebula’s got her batons back, and Rocket has Peter’s blasters, and they’re both taking on as many Sons as they can while Peter watches, helpless. 

He’d been hoping that the Sons were actually weak, that the only reason they’d been able to overpower him and the others was because of that gas that knocked them out, but they’re putting up a good fight. True, they heavily outnumber Gamora, Nebula, and Rocket, but he’s seen Gamora take down fifty enemies on her own in a matter of minutes.

For a moment he has a dim, backwards hope that maybe she won't be able to make it to the front of the room, that maybe the creature will take him first anyway. There are more Sons pouring in from all sides of the room and he loses track of her for a bit -- only for her to resurface barely a yard away. Middle Son sees her immediately too. 

"Don't!" Peter yells again, his throat burning with the desperation of it. He's seeing her on Knowhere again, watching her throw herself in front of Thanos, go exactly where he's told her not to because _of course_ she was always going to protect him even if paradoxically it meant doing the most devastating damage of all. He is not going to let that happen again, not now, not when he's proven himself so completely unworthy of her damn self-sacrifices, when she doesn't even _love_ him like she did before. " _Don't!_ That thing will make you--"

"I relive my worst memories every night," says Gamora. "Whatever nightmares this creature holds will pale in comparison." 

Then she turns and throws herself directly at Middle Son, who captures her when three other Sons distract her, pins her to her knees with a hand around her throat and allows the thrashing tentacles to take her.

Peter screams; he tries to scream her name or _no_ but he’s pretty sure it comes out as just a wordless cry. Gamora screams too, but only for a second; then she either goes silent or any noise she is making is drowned out by the chaos of the fight going on around her. 

Nebula’s scream of fury is perfectly audible though, and Peter watches hopefully as she runs to Gamora, batons out, practically mowing through enemies in her way. Middle Son sees her coming and leaps up off of Gamora to defend himself; Nebula manages a shot at his stomach but it’s not enough, he’s still fighting, and now there’s other Sons swarming in on her. She can’t get to Gamora and Peter is pretty sure his throat is going to rip itself from his body from all this screaming. 

Gamora’s on her knees, like he is, seemingly helpless against whatever torment the monster is unleashing in her head. She’s not yelling anymore but her face is contorted in pain and Peter realizes with even more agony that she’s sobbing and god, he’s crying too, and there is _nothing_ he can do to help her. He’s reminded so painfully of Knowhere, the way she’d cried when she’d thought she’d killed Thanos, that he thinks he really might vomit again, that his empty stomach might just turn itself inside out. He’s pulling at his restraints so hard the metal is digging into his skin and he’s definitely drawing blood but it’s no use. All he can do is watch her suffer. 

Middle Son has a spreading wet blotch that must be blood on his abdomen, but he's clearly stronger than a Terran because he just keeps on going. The other Sons are working to protect him, seem to be more invested in that than in their own lives, judging by how willing they are to get mowed down by Nebula's batons and Rocket's blaster shots. Peter isn't getting any more satisfaction from that, though, because Gamora is still struggling in front of him, apparently in too much pain to even try to get the thing off her head. He has never seen her completely helpless like this -- even in Thanos's grasp, she'd been in control, been able to demand that he end her life rather than become a pawn. 

Then all at once, the lights in the room go out. It's so dark to begin with that Peter first thinks he's losing consciousness again, that his body's finally just had enough. But a second later the ground under him starts to shake, and some of the sound of the fight dies out as the Sons go still in shock-- or maybe it's just drowned out by the cacophony of explosions and screaming metal as the far wall first bows inward and then ruptures in a shower of sparks and flame. 

It takes Peter another moment to register two things: First that the Benatar has come plowing straight through the outer hull of the Sons' ship and is now sitting in the middle of their lab space. Second, that his restraints have abruptly let loose, sending him sprawling forward. 

He's just managed to look up again when Mantis comes bounding down the ramp and gives a little wave toward him, Rocket, and Nebula. "Hi!" Then she bares her teeth at the Sons. "Time for you to pay for hurting my friends."

Groot and Drax come running out right behind her. Groot’s already growing his vines and he lets out a loud battle cry as he starts grabbing and throwing Sons that haven’t already been crushed by the Benatar. Drax, brandishing his knives, yells, “Yes, you will all pay! With my knives!” Which isn’t quite right, but Peter hardly notices or cares beyond being grateful, because whatever powers his restraints has been destroyed by the crash so now he’s _free_. 

He runs towards Gamora, all weakness and pain and nausea forgotten, not caring about the fight going on around him, just focused on getting to her. She’s still sobbing, her face contorted, mouth open, shoulders hunched with the force of her cries. Her sword lies at her side, easily within reach, but whatever this thing is making her see is so painful that she doesn’t even attempt it. 

Filled with a coursing anger at the creature that’s doing this to her, Peter lets out a growl and falls to his knees, sliding the few feet left between him and Gamora. Without hesitation, he grabs her sword off the ground and slices off the top half of the creature’s distinctly octopus-like head, where there’s no danger of him hitting Gamora by accident.

The Godslayer is true and cuts through the creature easily. That half of its head flies off and its tentacles instantly pale and loosen their grip. Peter hadn’t even noticed they’d been pulsating before they stopped. He grabs them in all their slimy disgustingness and flings them in the direction of the head. 

"Gamora," he breathes, as soon as all the pieces of the thing are long gone. He falls to his knees in front of her, wipes his hands violently on his pants and then rests one of them on her shoulder, which only makes it even more painfully apparent how hard she's shaking. "Gamora, sweetheart, can you hear me?"

She looks up as she registers his touch, but her eyes are still swimming with tears, her expression vacant. She's still far away, he can tell. He's seen her like this before after nightmares, only this is far worse than ever before. 

"Look at me," he says desperately, though she's already doing that. He needs so badly to help her that he's almost paralyzed by it. "Can you stand? I'll help you."

"Peter," she whispers, her voice a hoarse whisper, and he can't tell whether it's a question or an acknowledgment, relief or pain. 

"Yeah," he says anyway, moving his hand up to touch her cheek lightly, feeling the wet heat of her tears. "Yeah, it's me. You're safe."

"Uh, no you're not, idiots," Nebula's voice cuts in, shattering that moment. "None of us will be if we don't get to the ship _now_."

He glances around, sees that many of the Sons they've been fighting are on the ground or retreating, but there's still more coming in from all directions. 

"Take her," Nebula orders. "And go. I'll cover you."

Peter nods, understanding, then turns back to Gamora. 

"I'm sorry," he breathes before lifting her in his arms, surprised as always at how small she seems when he holds her like this. 

She does nothing to fight him, and he doesn't stop running until they've reached the top of the Benatar's ramp.


	14. Chapter 14

Rocket sprints to the cockpit as soon as they get inside the Benatar, so quickly that Peter only gets on in time to see his tail whipping out of sight up the ladder. They’re taking off before the hatch has even fully closed behind Nebula. For once, Peter doesn’t give one single crap about Rocket trying to take over pilot duties; he’s grateful, in fact. He’s got way more important things to worry about. 

He’s still got Gamora cradled in his arms, and though she’s conscious and coherent, his thoughts are a jumbled, panicked mess about her. He’s vacillating between getting her somewhere comfortable and getting to the medical supplies as soon as possible, and the fact that most of the others are around him--making noise and asking if she’s okay and hovering--isn’t helping his sanity. 

“Put her on the table,” Nebula orders, already sweeping dirty dishes and bags of candy off of it and onto the floor like they’ve personally offended her. 

“No,” Gamora says, quietly but with conviction, before Peter can even think about whether or not to follow Nebula’s command. Nebula looks surprised, pausing right as she was about to chuck a bowl across the room. “I want--just Peter right now.” Then she looks up at him. “Our room. Please.” 

Nebula freezes entirely, obviously shocked. If it were under different circumstances, her expression would be comical, something Peter would want to get a picture of for future blackmail potential. “ _What_?”

“Just him,” Gamora repeats before Peter’s had a chance to react at all. Her voice is still soft but perfectly steady now, even firmer than before. If he had any room for doubts of his own -- and seriously, he has plenty -- that shuts them right up, at least for now. He would have done anything for her right from the start, but he’s _especially_ going to right now. 

“Tell Rocket to take us to the Quadrant,” he tells Nebula, then heads in the direction of the captain’s quarters immediately. He has absolutely no hesitation about going in there now, despite all the times recently that he’s felt a near-nauseating aversion toward it. His heart is still pounding, adrenaline still spiking through him, but he’s focused now. He has a mission: help Gamora as much as he can, as quickly as possible.

“You’re bleeding,” she points out as he sets her on the bed. 

Peter blinks, glances down at himself and sees that she’s right, that his wrists are raw and bleeding from his struggles against the restraints. It’s not like she’s fared much better -- There’s a horrifying amount of slime in her hair and dark trickles of what might be Xurcoils blood. There are also raw spots on her forehead from where its tentacles seem to have burned through the skin.

“Okay,” he breathes, resigning himself to the fact that he’s going to have to leave her, if only for a few seconds. “Okay, I’m gonna get the kit. I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Get enough for yourself too,” she says, eyeing his wrists. 

He nods, because he might not care about his own injuries right now, but he would do anything she asked. So even though he hates to leave her there, sitting on the edge of the bed looking so incredibly vulnerable, he dashes out the door. 

Thankfully, most of the team is gone from the main area by the time he gets out there, probably all up in the cockpit. Except Groot. He’s standing by the table, shifting from one foot to the other. His head snaps up when Peter comes in. 

“You okay, bud?” Peter asks, though he’s mostly focused on getting the med kit as quickly as possible. He practically runs to the cabinet where they keep it. 

“I am Groot?” he asks, and Peter pauses for just a second. To hear Groot ask something so genuinely, without trying to make it sound casual or even while looking at his video game to avoid eye contact, is an extremely rare occurrence lately. 

“Oh,” he says quietly. “Yeah, she’s gonna be okay, bud.” He grabs the kit and two bottles of the electrolyte drink, figuring she could use it and she won’t be pleased if he doesn’t get himself one. Shuffling all that so he can hold it in one arm, he gives Groot a pat on the shoulder as he passes by him. “I promise. She’s strong. So don’t worry, okay?” 

Groot nods, but Peter gets the feeling he’s not gonna stop worrying. He can’t exactly blame him. 

“You can -- see her later,” says Peter, then hopes that’s not a mistake. Gamora has expressed nothing but doubt about her ability to interact with Groot, though that’s not so different from before, when she was first getting to know him as a baby. She’d been constantly afraid of hurting him then, and she hadn’t even had his teenage attitude to contend with. He doesn’t have time to worry about that now, though, because he needs to get back to her. It’s already been too long.

Juggling all of the stuff around again so that he doesn’t drop it, Peter hurries back toward the captain’s quarters. Fortunately he left the door a tiny crack open so he can shoulder his way through it and dump everything onto the bed beside Gamora. She’s still sitting in exactly the same spot, looking impossibly small and impossibly young, arms wrapped around herself as her whole body shakes. 

“Are you all right?” she asks before he can find his voice to say anything at all.

Peter blinks at her. “What -- me?”

“You were sick before,” she insists. “And your wrists--”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “Thanks to you. You shouldn’t have--”

“I’m glad the creature didn’t touch you,” she interrupts fiercely.

“I wish it hadn’t touched you,” he says, delicately touching her cheek without thinking about it; it’s just his natural instinct. Luckily, she doesn’t flinch or try to kick him this time. She might even lean into his touch before she shakes her head. 

“It is better this way,” she says softly. 

“You being hurt isn’t better,” he tells her. 

“It is,” she insists, with so much conviction that he knows this argument is pointless. Gamora has never wanted him to be hurt, has always insisted that she should be the one hurt instead, and he’s always felt the opposite. He doesn’t think that’s ever going to change. 

“I brought you a drink,” he says, letting his fingers slip from her face so he can uncap it for her. 

“Thank you,” she says. She takes it, but waits until she sees that he has his own before drinking. He’d smile if he wasn’t so concerned about her. 

He takes a few small sips to appease her before setting his drink down and refocusing. The marks on her head where the creature’s tentacles had gripped her are already fading, but they still look dark and angry. He should put something on them to ease what is probably a burning sensation, but he won’t be able to do much while her hair and head are covered in goop. 

“I’m gonna clean you up, okay?” he says gently. 

“Your wrists first,” she says. 

“But--” he starts, about to insist that he take care of her first. But then he looks down at his wrists and realizes that they’re still bleeding, and it would be pretty counterproductive to clean the slime out of her hair only for him to drip blood into it instead. 

He sighs, realizing he can’t win this one as much as he really, really wants to be taking care of her immediately. He opens the kit quickly, rips open one of the antiseptic wipes and cleans his left wrist roughly, hissing through his teeth as it burns. He isn’t about to slow down, though, just wants to do the minimum so that he can stop the bleeding and get Gamora to let him focus on her instead. He wraps the same wrist quickly, glad the bandage conforms to his skin since he’s applied it rather crookedly. 

It’s a struggle when he gets to his other wrist, though. He’s clumsy with his left hand as is, and the adrenaline has begun to ebb just enough that now he’s shaking. He swipes at it so roughly that it starts to bleed more, and he hasn’t even attempted to start bandaging it when Gamora catches his hands.

“Let me,” she insists, in a tone that tells him it’s not a question.

He feels a fresh pull of guilt at the fact that she’s _still_ taking care of him, but he’s sure not about to fight it when he knows that would just upset her. Besides, it seems like having something to focus on might actually be helping her, because her own hands are steady as she takes over.

She’s a lot more gentle than he was, and he has to blink back the tears that spring to his eyes at the tenderness in her touch, in her expression as she carefully cleans and wraps his wrist. Her hand lingers after she’s done, unnecessarily smoothing over the bandage with a light touch that he never wants to end, even though he wants to help her too. 

“I will kill every last one of those people,” Gamora says, an intense fierceness in her voice despite how quiet it is. She meets his eyes and his heart flutters in his chest at her expression. 

Then his eyes once again catch the marks on her head. “Save a few of ‘em for me, huh?”

“We can kill them together,” she says. She squeezes his hand before finally letting it fall back to his side. 

“Deal,” he says, refocusing once again. Now that he’s not in danger of bleeding on her, he picks up a wet-cloth from the med kit and activates it, so that it instantly becomes damp. “It’s not gonna totally wash your hair,” he says apologetically, “but it’ll help.” 

“Okay,” she says, and Peter pauses. Her voice is a little tight, and her eyes are following the cloth in his hand. He thinks for a second that she doesn’t want him to do this, but there’s an unmistakable longing in her gaze. When he realizes what it is, it feels like something is actually squeezing his heart. 

He’s been taking care of Gamora’s hair for years, but to _her_ this will be the first time. The...other...first time had been a big deal too, for her to allow him to participate in something she considers private and personal. 

"Sorry," he says softly, continuing quickly when he sees the look of surprise register on her face. "I know this is -- a big thing for you. Probably not how you would have chosen for it to go, right?" It's not lost on him that this feels a bit like discussing sex -- Then again, he also knows it's a similar level of intimacy for her. 

"I did choose it," says Gamora, and now it's his turn to be surprised. 

He raises his eyebrows, the cloth still sitting in his hand. "What?"

"I chose this," she repeats, more firmly. "All of this. I chose to go on the job with you, I chose to fight the creature. I chose you to help me with the aftermath. Making choices is a thing I get to do now. Don't make it into something you need to feel guilt for."

"Oh," he breathes, understanding suddenly. That's another thing he's taken for granted. He's so used to Gamora having that autonomy, being good and brave and selfless. But she doesn't know those things about herself yet, is only just learning them. 

"You have done this for -- me before, yes?" she asks, only stumbling slightly over the words. 

"Yes," he whispers, his throat tight all over again. 

"Then I assume you are good at it if I let you do it regularly," she says, the edge of bravado not quite covering the vulnerability in her voice now. "So show me."

“Okay,” he says, hoping his reverence is clear in his voice. The fact that she’s trusting him to do this, even though she doesn’t have the experience of him doing it for her before, means just as much to him as it did the first time -- the original first time. 

He starts with her face, stretching the cloth over two of his fingers so he can carefully wipe away the slime that’s begun to dry there. He has to press harder than he’d like on the raw marks from the tentacles, but she only winces once, slightly. He feels guilty anyway. 

“Sorry,” he says quietly, as if anything louder than a whisper would destroy the moment. 

“Don’t be,” she says just as quietly. “Keep going.”

He obeys. He shifts the cloth around even though it absorbs the goop and cleans itself, because she deserves the best care he can possibly give her. He slides the cloth slowly and as gently as possible over her hair, starting from the top and working down. 

“This okay?” he asks. His fingers, still a little shaky, follow the progress of the cloth so he can make sure it gets all the slime. He hasn’t touched her hair in what feels like so long...what _has_ been so long...it’s as if this is the first time for him too. 

"Keep going," she says again, her voice still soft but also now rough with emotion. 

Her hair is still pulled back, though a considerable amount has come loose from her ponytail during the struggle with the Xurcoils. When he's gotten most of the slime off, Peter shifts his hand further back and carefully works the tie loose so that her curls tumble down around her shoulders. She exhales shakily at that, a sound of relief. When Peter looks at her face again, she's got her eyes closed, her lips trembling ever so slightly. Moving on instinct again, he combs his fingers through her hair a couple times, then spots her brush on the bedside table, easily in reach. 

Peter resists the urge to do a fist pump or make an actual noise of approval, sensing that it would shatter the moment. Still, he reaches for the brush immediately, starting with the ends of her hair like she taught him years ago. It's tangled but still silky under his fingers, so achingly familiar that it's all he can do to resist the urge to bury his face in it, to hold her close and never let go.

It’s so easy to get lost in this, both the familiarity and the newness of it practically putting him in a trance. He’s at the point where he’s gotten all of the tangles out and is now just brushing it for the ritual and comfort of it, when he notices that Gamora is crying. 

He freezes, brush halfway down her hair, though he’s pretty sure she would have told him if she’d wanted him to stop. “Gamora?” he prompts. 

She opens her eyes and turns her head to look at him. She’s got her bottom lip between her teeth, tears sliding down both cheeks, but she doesn’t appear to be in pain. “Don’t stop,” she breathes, her voice choked, nearly desperate. “Please.”

“Anything,” he says in a hoarse whisper. He starts again and she closes her eyes, letting out a stuttering sigh that’s nearly a sob. Her shoulders are beginning to shake, but he continues as long as he can before her crying reaches a level he can’t ignore. 

“Hey, hey,” he says gently, setting the brush back down and standing in front of her again. Her face is scrunched up and every breath she takes is shaky. “It’s okay, Gamora, hey.” 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she says weakly. 

“You’re crying,” he points out. He cups her face with both hands and swipes at her tears with his thumbs, though he’s got no hope of keeping up with how fast they’re coming down. It’s not lost on him that not that long ago, he sat on the edge of this bed while she took care of _him_ , and futilely attempted to wipe away his tears. 

“I am not,” says Gamora, sniffling as the tears fall even faster. She’s refusing to meet his eyes, like maybe if she doesn’t look at him, it won’t be true. 

“You’re not crying?” he asks. This is yet another thing he’s forgotten from when he was first getting to know her -- How scared and ashamed she’d been of showing any emotion that might be perceived as weakness. How much she’d been made to suffer as a child for any hint of that. And how stubborn she’d been about admitting her feelings, even as she’d acted on them.

“I am not crying,” she insists, her breath hitching. “I don’t cry.” She still isn’t quite sobbing, but he has the sense that it’s only because of the way she’s torturing her lower lip, the way she’s using the pain to keep control of herself. 

“Okay,” says Peter, because he knows better than to push her when she’s like this. It doesn’t matter if she acknowledges it in words anyway, what matters is that he helps her to feel safe, to feel better. He can do that, no matter what his self-doubt is trying to tell him. “Okay, come here.”

Sitting back down beside her, he wraps an arm around her shoulders, loosely at first, so that she has a chance to pull away. When she doesn’t, he moves closer still, coaxing her gently into his lap.

“What are you doing?” she whispers, but still doesn’t pull away. In fact, she leans into his touch, their sides touching. 

“Holding you,” he says, half a question. “If that’s okay.” 

“I don’t--know how,” she says. That same longing she’d held in her gaze before is clear in her voice now, though it’s clogged with tears and broken up by a hitch in her breathing as she struggles to keep her crying under control. It’s a battle she’s quickly losing. 

“I’ll do all the work,” he assures her. He scoots farther back onto the bed so they’ve got more room, and puts his other hand on her arm to help guide her, though he barely puts enough pressure to move a feather. “You don’t have to do anything but...be.” 

“Okay,” she says, barely audible. She leans fully into him, and lets one of her legs rest over his so he can hold her close, her head against his chest. He’s got both arms around her now, holding her in as close to a hug as they can get in this slightly awkward position. Her hands come up to clutch the back of his shirt. He’s not sure she’s even aware she’s doing it. 

“You’re doing great,” he tells her. His heart aches when she starts crying harder, muffling the sound into his chest. He rubs her back soothingly. “You’re safe here, no one is going to punish you for crying, okay? I promise. Let it out.”

“I am not crying,” she says for the third time, the words muffled into his shirt and broken in the middle by a sob. She’s just being willful now, obviously doesn’t expect him to actually believe her. It’s so quintessentially _Gamora_ that he very nearly loses it too. He blinks hard, forcing back the few tears that are threatening to escape. Not because he’s ashamed about crying in front of her -- god knows he’s done enough of that already and somehow has yet to scare her off. Before or now, really. Still, he needs her to feel safe now, needs to be the one giving her comfort, not tempt her to turn it the other way around again. Because she will, he knows, if given any inkling that her reaction is causing him any sort of pain.

“Okay,” he soothes, running a hand up and down her back. “Well, you’re safe here regardless. I’ve got you. Anything you need.”

She exhales another shaky breath at that, makes a soft noncommittal sound, her fingers twisting even harder into the fabric of his shirt. Then she shifts ever so slightly, looking up at him through wet eyelashes. She looks so desperate, so simultaneously wistful and hopeful that he doesn’t even think, just leans down and presses a tender kiss to her forehead.

She gasps, a tiny sound he might not have noticed if her eyes didn’t also widen. He worries briefly that that was the wrong thing to do, that it was too much. But the way she looks at him quickly dispels that fear; her eyes are full of confusion, wonder, _affection_ , but no anger or fear. As far as she’s concerned, this is the first time he’s ever touched her that way. The first time _anyone_ has touched her that way since she was a child. 

That realization, and that expression, combine to nearly cause him to break his conviction not to cry. But then she lets out a sob, harder than before, and buries her face in his neck, clutching at him desperately. 

Peter keeps rubbing her back and trying to make soothing noises; she cries like this so rarely, he’s torn between relieved she’s letting it out and concerned at how upset she is. Whatever that monster made her see must have been terrible. He doesn’t care if it’s him or Gamora who kills all those Sons of bitches, as long as he gets to watch them die. 

She continues crying, and Peter’s momentarily lost for what else he can do to comfort her. She used to like it when he sang to her when she got upset, but his own voice is choked, and he’s afraid one attempt at words right now will break the fragile barrier he’s got keeping his own tears at bay. 

Instead he slides his fingers into her hair again, lets himself fall into the familiar ritual of separating it into sections, weaving it into a braid. It’s just a regular one this time, none of the fancy things she’s taught him over the years. Then again, this is the one they’ve both always found the most comforting, the first one he’d learned; a sort of mindless motion that connects them. He pauses abruptly when he gets to the end of it several inches sooner than he expects and realizes that this -- no, that Gamora _now_ \-- hasn’t had a chance to nourish and grow her hair. Well, that will just have to be one more good thing she gets to experience all over again, he resolves, and undoes the braid to start again. 

As he continues to braid a second time, then a third and a fourth, he finds that his own heart rate has slowed, that his throat isn’t quite so tight. Not because it hurts any less to see her like this, but because this simple act of comfort is working. He begins to hum then, finally, able to trust his voice again. He can’t settle on a single song, so instead he just lets snatches of melody come into his head, a little bit of everything and nothing.

Eventually, Gamora starts to calm too. Her tears slow, her breath evens out, her grip on his shirt loosens, though she doesn’t let go. He’s got a wet spot on his shirt where she’s been crying into it, but it’s the smallest price he’s ever paid, doesn’t bother him at all. Gamora doesn’t seem to mind either, since she doesn’t move her head from his chest, except to turn her face slightly so she can look up at him. 

He lets go of her hair at the end of another braid, leaving it like that even though without a tie it immediately starts to lose its shape. He can’t resist the pull to gently wipe her cheek again, since her tears have finally slowed enough for it to make a difference. 

For a while, neither of them say anything. He lets his hand linger on her cheek, as she seems to enjoy the contact, judging by the way her eyes flutter shut when he continues stroking her skin back and forth with his thumb. 

“These marks have started healing,” he whispers at last, letting his finger trace over one of the burns the tentacles had left. It’s scarcely more than a shadow now. The flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, presumably from crying so hard in front of him, is a deeper color than the marks. 

“Yes,” she says simply. One of his hands has wandered to her hair again, and she makes a little noise, not quite a sigh. “Did you...do this before?” 

He nods. “Was it okay?” 

“Yes,” she says again. “I--liked it. It helped.”

“Good,” says Peter, feeling his own face flush -- it isn’t quite embarrassment, isn’t the same thing she’s feeling, he doesn’t think. It’s more like...pleasure, mostly, and the same familiar conflict over the fact that he’s doing these things for her, feeling these things for her. That it’s so very easy to fall right back into this. He doesn’t stop, though, twisting a lock of her hair around his thumb gently before letting it fall loose again. 

“You should drink more,” she says after a few more minutes, just as his awareness has begun to drift again, lulled by the feel of her hair and the sound of her breathing, much slower and more regular now.

Peter blinks, not following. “What?”

“You should drink more,” she repeats. She sits up abruptly, which is disappointing until he realizes that she’s just grabbing the bottles of electrolyte replacement they’ve both abandoned. She presses one into his hand before uncapping her own.

“I’m fine,” he insists, though he knows she’s not going to let him get away with that. He drinks some more, the flavor unpleasant as always.

“You may be,” says Gamora, studying him. “But the gas was very hard on you. Your pulse was erratic for quite a while. I thought your heart might stop.”

“Oh,” he says, surprised and touched. He suddenly recalls that he’d woken up with his head in her lap, her hand in his hair. She must have been monitoring his pulse, concerned about him. 

For his part, he’s managed to completely forget until now that the gas the Sons had used is one of the reasons he feels like crap. His concern for Gamora had completely eclipsed his own pain, but now that the adrenaline has mostly ebbed, the weakness in his body and the pounding in his head are making themselves known again. The drink is, at least, making his head ache slightly less. 

But still, despite the fact that Gamora appears to be physically okay, it’s not his own suffering he’s worried about. “What about you?” he asks. 

“The effects of the gas wore off on me first,” she says, then takes another drink. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he tells her.

“I know,” she says. She runs her finger around the rim of the bottle. “I am no longer in physical pain.”

He catches the meaning behind the wording, and his heart aches again. “Okay,” he says, deciding on a compromise. “So, we both aren’t fine.”

The corner of her mouth twitches up slightly, and it feels like a victory. “Perhaps not.” She looks at him again, eyes scanning over his face. He doesn’t know what she’s looking for or what she finds, but she says, “You should rest.”

“You should too,” he points out. 

There’s that little lip twitch again, but it’s decidedly vulnerable; tentative. Her words come out like a question: “If only there was some way to accomplish that.” 

“Huh,” says Peter, pretending to think very hard. It doesn’t take much effort; he _is_ working hard to resist the urge to kiss her forehead again, practically brimming over with affection and the need to take care of her. He doesn’t want to overstep, though, doesn’t want to shatter the fragile comfort she seems to be finding. So instead he just mugs at her, scratching his chin in a parody of soulful reflection. “You mean like...if only there was a bed somewhere nearby? Like...possibly maybe right under us?”

“That would be very fortunate,” says Gamora, her tone still tentative, almost shy. “It would be even more fortunate if you were -- willing to share it with me, since we both require rest. Though I would also certainly understand if you preferred not to.”

“Hey,” he says gently, allowing his hand to drift to her cheek now, just a light brush that gets her to meet his eyes again. Still, he can’t help feeling the heat of her blush, darker still than it was a few moments ago. “Hey, of course I will if that’s what you want. I meant what I said, anything you need.” He pauses, considers what her reservations probably are. “And nothing that you don’t want. All you gotta do is say the word.”

“I trust you,” she says without hesitation. 

“Okay,” he says, and offers her a small, reassuring smile. Then he scoots farther back on the bed so he can lie on the other side, behind her. He stretches out on his side facing her, and she hesitantly lets herself lie down on her back. 

Her hands are resting on her own stomach and she’s holding herself stiffly, but not because she doesn’t want to do this, he knows. She was the same nine years ago, when she was unsure if she could have intimacy like this.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. He reaches out and puts his hand over one of hers, and it only takes her a second to turn her hand over so she can grasp it. 

“Now what?” she asks. She’s looking at their hands, but he can’t keep his eyes off her face, and how tentative yet hopeful she looks. It’s such a familiar expression that for probably the dozenth time in the past ten minutes he nearly cries. 

“Well, we can lie like this,” he says. “But you’d probably be more comfortable if you turned on your side.” 

“Like this?” she asks, slowly turning to face away from him. She keeps a hold of his hand, like he’d been hoping she would, so he ends up with his arm thrown loosely around her waist. Her back isn’t quite pressed up against his front, but they brush against each other with every breath. 

"Exactly," says Peter, squeezing her hand gently. He wants her to relax but he knows it won't help just to tell her that she should. She needs the same time and patience that she did before, no matter how desperate he might be for her to have every good thing immediately. "See? You're a natural at this."

She exhales, not quite a laugh. "No, I am not." 

He decides not to contradict her this time, and a few minutes of silence fall between them. Gamora plays idly with his fingers, and he tries his best not to react to that with his entire body. 

"When did you first do this for me?" she asks finally, her tone still measured. She's trying to make sense of this, he thinks, figure out where they stand. "Were we -- together? Romantically?"

He can't help smiling a bit at the memory, though it's not all happy. He thinks she'll like it in this context, though. "Actually no. There was uh -- You got recognized. Not in a good way. There wasn't a fight or anything, but it really upset you. Later that night, you came to my bunk. You just...wanted to feel safe and not alone. You told me you'd kill me if I ever told anybody about it, but...telling it back to you doesn't count, right?"

She smiles too, gaze focused on their hands. “No, I don’t think that counts. I also don’t think I would have killed you, though.”

“Nah,” he says. “Definitely would have been some yelling. Maybe a little stabbing. But I would never have told anyway. Still won’t.”

“Thank you,” she says softly. She’s still playing with his hand, but slower now, almost absently, as they lapse back into a not-uncomfortable silence. She seems to be lost in thought, and he’s happy to lie here in silence with her if that’s what she wants. But those marks from the brain monster are still lingering on her skin, and he can’t help but worry about what exactly the thoughts are that she’s lost in. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, since he’s not sure she would volunteer on her own if she did. 

“Talk about what?” she asks. Judging by the sudden stiffness in her shoulders, she knows what he means. 

“The Xurcoils,” he answers anyway. She hesitates, so he adds, “Only if you want to, remember? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t. But--talking about these things usually helps.”

“You know what that thing does,” she whispers. Her fingers tighten their hold on his. He doesn’t think she means to do it. 

“I know,” he says softly. “It...was obviously bad.” 

“I didn’t think it could be _that_ bad,” she admits. “But it was...It made me feel all of the emotions from the memories, as if they were happening again.” 

"Oh, babe," he whispers, so horrified that he can't even think, can't stop the words from tumbling out. He doesn't even realize what he's said until she stiffens again, and for one horrible second he thinks he's ruined everything. He's trying to figure out how to take it back, how to apologize, when she rolls over toward him, practically dragging his arm over her shoulders as she tries to bury her face in his chest again. 

"Whoa," he breathes, equal parts surprised and a bit horrified yet again at seeing her so desperate, so completely undone. It _is_ achingly similar to that first time, but also so much worse. "Hey, it's okay." He shifts onto his back so that he can wrap both arms around her again. 

"I saw my mother," she says finally. "On the day she -- On the day Thanos murdered her."

“Mora,” he breathes, another nickname that slips out without conscious thought. She doesn’t stiffen at this one, just tightens her hold on him. He can tell she’s crying again, though not sobbing as heavily as before. 

“I was ripped away from her,” she continues, her voice slightly muffled into his shirt, but he hears her, every word tearing at his heart. “She was trying to save me, but I--we were separated and then I couldn’t find her, I couldn’t protect her.” 

“Hey, you were a child,” Peter reminds her. 

Gamora shakes her head. “I should have done better. I could have.” 

He rubs her back, wishing there was something he could say that would make her see that that’s not even a little her fault. Then again, he knows what that kind of guilt is like. 

“I feel the same way,” he admits, “about not being able to help my mom.”

“You do?” she asks in a small voice. 

“Yeah,” he says. “She...I told you she died. She was sick for a while. I knew...we all knew it was coming. The day she died, the day I was abducted, she was lying in the hospital and she asked me to take her hand. That’s the _last thing_ she did, the last thing she wanted before she died. And I didn’t do it. I was standing right beside her and I didn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at her.” 

Gamora catches his hand again, like an echo of his words, and Peter wonders whether she knows what she's doing, whether it's intentional. She laces their fingers and squeezes, now clearly trying to comfort him. "You are a good man, Peter. A good person."

He smiles sadly. "You make me better. All of you do."

She goes quiet again before taking yet another shaky breath. "The memories of my mother's death were bad enough. But they were not all the monster showed me."

"What else?" asks Peter, sensing that she still needs the encouragement. He keeps her hand cradled in his, stroking the back of it with his thumb. 

She shifts against him, steeling herself. "I saw myself and Nebula as children. The first time -- the first time I turned on her. He made me -- No. I _wanted_ to win. I broke her ribs. Thanos cut open her chest and replaced them with metal."

“You were trying to survive,” Peter says firmly. 

“I was trying to win favor,” she says bitterly. Her voice is still clogged with tears, but it’s the guilt in her voice that really cuts to his heart. That’s exactly what that monster was designed to do, and here it is making her suffer even after he’s killed it. And really--Thanos is making her suffer, even after he’s been killed. 

“Which is how you survived,” he says. “And you were a _kid_.”

“So was Nebula,” Gamora says. “And I was not a child every time. I continued winning our battles as we got older. And Nebula suffered for it.”

“And she forgives you now,” Peter reminds her, desperate to get that sadness out of her voice. “And you are good to her now.” 

She sighs, but either cedes his point or gives up arguing, because she just says, “I felt awful. I still do. Worse now. It’s like that thing made me feel what I was feeling at the time, except _more_.”

“What else?” Peter prompts again. 

She takes a breath then blows it out again, her fingers playing idly along one of the seams of his shirt. She still doesn't want to say it, he can tell, and he finds himself a little afraid of what might be so awful as to provoke that sort of shame and dread. He'd been so certain he knew everything about her, every dark secret and fear, but now--

"I think -- it made me hallucinate somehow," says Gamora, surprising him again. "Or -- or perhaps caused one of my modifications to malfunction again? I don't know. It felt the same as the other things, as if I was reliving a terrible moment. Only I never actually lived it in the first place."

He considers this, a good dose of curiosity now added to the dread. It's a weird, unpleasant mix. "How can you be sure you didn't?"

"Because you were there," she says immediately, the words falling from her lips with greater speed and certainty now that she seems to have committed to it. "And Thanos. And -- the world was on fire."

Images of Knowhere pop into his head immediately but he does his best to shove them back. This isn’t about him, about that -- horrible day. He’s got to focus on Gamora, on whatever it is that the monster made her see. 

“What do you mean, the world was on fire?” he asks. 

“I mean, wherever I was -- where _we_ were -- everything was fire,” she says. She takes a shaky breath. “It was somewhere that I don’t think I’ve ever been before. Wherever it was, there were a lot of broken things around, and it was all on fire. And Thanos...he was holding me by the neck. In front of you. You had a blaster, and you were…” 

She trails off. Either that, or the pounding of Peter’s heart is now too loud to hear her over. He’s confused and horrified and _really_ confused and...maybe a little hopeful? He doesn’t know what to think or feel, or how this could be possible. 

“What’s wrong?” Gamora asks, probably because he’s gone all tense and silent and his heart has to be beating so loudly that even non-enhanced ears could hear it. She lifts her head slightly so she can look at him, her brow knitted in concern. 

“Did I tell you to go right?” he breathes. 

"What?" she asks, her confusion mirroring his and for one brief second he thinks he's wrong, just imagining his own worst case scenario. But then she shakes her head, brow furrowed. "You didn't tell me then, but -- You said that you _had_ told me. You were crying. And I guess I didn't listen, because I was -- I was both hurt and ashamed."

"Fuck," he whispers, his pulse speeding up even more. He can't get out any real volume because his heart is in his throat and he's choking on panic, on his own guilt. "Oh, _fuck._ "

"What?" asks Gamora, looking thoroughly alarmed and also like she wants to cry again. She pushes herself up on her elbows, frantically searching his face. "What is it? Am I -- losing my mind?"

"No." He swallows desperately, trying to force the words out. "No, it -- it _is_ a memory. It's just not -- yours." Or it shouldn't be, anyway. God, she should never have had to learn about this, let alone live it for herself. 

“Peter, what are you talking about?” she asks. She sounds irritated, but he knows her well enough to know it’s mostly because she’s scared. He’s scared too because he has no idea how this happened or what this could possibly mean. 

“That -- what you saw...that’s the last time I saw the -- past-future you,” he says, struggling to get the words out both because of the pain of the memory and the pain of this moment. 

“What?” she breathes, fairly horrified. “But that’s...How could that be possible? I don’t -- I never experienced that, how could I remember it?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “You didn’t...no one told you about it, did they?” Maybe the monster just has the ability to bring stories to life, if she’d heard it somewhere before. He knows _he_ didn’t tell her, but she’d been friendly with Mantis and Drax, and they were both there too. One of them might have. 

But Gamora shakes her head. “ _No_. What -- are you _sure_ we are talking about the same thing?”

“What else did you see?” he asks. He’s honestly not sure whether he’s hoping to be proven wrong or proven right. He’s not sure of anything right now. 

“You were...holding a blaster aimed at my head,” she says, watching his face. “And it--”

“Turned to bubbles,” he finishes for her. 

“Why did I want you to kill me?” she asks, and there’s still that edge in her voice, and the naked terror in her eyes. She looks like a part of her wants to bolt right now, wants to get as far away from all of them as possible; and really, how could he blame her after what she’s just seen -- no, _experienced?_ Hell, he wouldn’t expect her to want to be with him if she’d remembered, if she was still the woman who’d experienced it all firsthand.

He bites his lip until he tastes the tang of blood, forcing his voice to work, because it has to. He doesn’t _want_ to tell her any of this, but he owes it to her, he knows. And it might be his only chance at convincing her that he hasn’t been misleading her this whole time, that his heart is in the right place even if he’s a miserable failure.

“You -- You said that you knew something Thanos didn’t,” he manages finally. 

Gamora winces, her whole body moving with it. “The location of the Soul Stone?”

He nods. “Yeah, but you didn’t tell me that was what it was at the time. You wouldn’t, because you said it would put me in danger too. When you knew we’d be going to confront him, you said that if he got to you -- You asked me to kill you. Made me swear on my mother’s name. I _never_ wanted to hurt you, Gamora, but -- “

“But you promised,” she interrupts. She studies him intensely. “And you did it? When the time came?”

“Well, I tried,” says Peter. “But he had the Reality Stone, and -- You saw. Bubbles.”

“I loved you in that moment,” says Gamora, her own voice a ragged, pained whisper. “More than _anything._ I have never felt anything like it before.”

He swallows painfully, reliving the moment in his head. He’s been doing that often the past few weeks, but now it’s like the monster has somehow gotten into his head too. He knows that if it had, this is one of the memories it would have made him live again. 

“What else did you feel?” he asks, because apparently he’s a masochist. His throat is tight, and he knows he’s lost the battle with his tears and that a few have managed to escape. 

“Guilty,” she says. He can feel her fingers trembling, can see her throat work as she seems to struggle for her own voice. “Horrible, seeing how much it was hurting you. Knowing that I had made you do this. That it was my fault.”

“It wasn’t--” he starts, but can’t bring himself to start that circular argument right now. Not when there’s that strange, tentative idea blossoming in the back of his mind that he can’t seem to keep inside; he has to ask. “Did Nebula um, tell you what happened with her memories when she--when she went back?” 

“Yes,” Gamora says, clearly confused about why he’s asked. “She told me that she and...her past self shared some memories. That they became entangled, in a way.” 

“Right,” Peter says. He almost doesn’t want to bring this up, but he can’t seem to keep the words from tumbling out. “So… So if you are experiencing some of past...of the other Gamora’s memories, then maybe--”

She’s shaking her head before he can even finish. “No, no, she’s dead. I remember her...I remember being dead.” 

“You -- _what_?” Peter asks, aware of how his tone sounds and completely unable to do anything at all about it. He’s horrified by the idea of her having to experience that, but more than that he’s hoping she’s wrong. Now that he’s managed to give voice to the possibility that Gamora -- that _his_ Gamora -- might still be alive, he can’t quite let go of the hope.

“I remember--” She breaks off, struggles for breath again. “I remember dying. That was the last thing the monster showed me, before you killed it. It showed me -- The moment when I knew he would kill me to get the Stone. I had a knife he didn’t know about, so I tried to do it myself before he could, but -- Those damn _bubbles_.”

He didn’t think it was possible to be more horrified, more sickened, but here it is. Apparently Thanos is endlessly capable of that, even after his death. “You tried to _kill_ yourself?” It doesn’t even occur to him to use different language this time; she’s referring to these as her experiences, and they are in a way. 

She shrugs helplessly. “I would have done anything to stop him from getting all the Stones. Not -- not only in the memory, not only her. _Me._ But it didn’t matter, because it didn’t work. And I -- The monster showed me how it felt to know that the universe was at his mercy because I had failed.”

“You didn’t—it was _not_ your fault,” he breathes, perhaps more horrified by her belief that it was than anything else. “God, Gamora, you did everything you could!” 

She shakes her head, and she’s crying again, though she’s obviously trying not to, her face contorted with the effort of it. “It wasn’t enough—“ she starts, then her voice chokes off on a sob. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Peter says, reaching for her again. She falls back into his arms easily, her head against his chest. As curious as he is about how this is possible, this isn’t about him or _that_ right now; it’s about taking care of her. “Forget what that monster made you see, okay? None of that stuff was your fault.” 

“It wasn’t just the Xurcoils,” she whispers into his shirt. “I’ve been—seeing other things too. I thought they were just dreams but…” 

“Other memories?” he asks, chest tight. 

“I—They must be,” she says; the words seem to fall out of her almost against her will, like the tears she’s powerless to stop. “I see—a cliff. Thanos. Orange.” 

"You told me you'd been having bad dreams," Peter says hesitantly. What he mainly remembers is that she's said some of them were about him. About him asking her to kill him. So clearly they aren't all memories. But apparently some of them also are. 

She nods against his shirt. "They were more vague at first. Mixed with-- with my actual subconscious, I guess." She pauses, but he can tell she isn't finished. "You were never there with me, were you? On Vormir? And you…never asked me to kill you, did you?"

"God, no," says Peter, horrified by the idea of any of that. Actually this entire conversation -- this entire day -- has been horrifying. He has the distinct impression that neither of them will be sleeping well for the foreseeable future. 

"So those were dreams," says Gamora. "But then -- they started to change. It was Thanos on the cliff instead of you. And I remember falling. I remember -- pain. Lying in the snow."

"You -- lying there?" he asks. It's the exact same image from his own darkest thoughts, his worst fears: that she didn't die right away, that she had time to suffer. 

"Yes," says Gamora. "And an orange -- desert, I think."

“A—What?” he asks, head reeling with the enormity of what she’s saying, of how much information he _does not_ have the capacity to deal with right now. 

“I think that part is—after,” Gamora says, like she’s just now realizing it. Which she probably is. If she believed up until now that they really were all dreams… 

“After sh—you died?” Peter asks, voice scarcely more than a breath. “How could that…I mean, how is that _possible_?” 

“I don’t _know_ ,” she says. “I don’t know what _any_ of this means.” She starts to cry harder at that, and Peter curses internally. This is clearly distressing her, and she seems to have no more of an idea what’s happening than he does. Hell, maybe that gas the Sons used is still in effect and it’s making him hallucinate and he’s still unconscious in a cell. Whether it’s real or not, he can’t begin to know how to deal with it right now. 

What he does know is that this Gamora, right here and now, needs him, whether she’s real or not, whether she’s his or not, and he’s gonna do everything he can for her. 

“Hey, don’t worry about that right now,” he says gently, trying to sound confident even as he thinks he’s never been this unsure. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“Am I?” she chokes. 

“Yeah,” Peter breathes. He rubs her back, trying to coax her into a more relaxed position on the bed, just comforting her the best way he can right now. “I’m gonna make sure of it.”


	15. Chapter 15

Gamora sleeps fitfully, though the fact that she sleeps at all is probably some kind of miracle. She isn’t ready to admit that the rest she’s able to get has anything at all to do with Peter’s presence, or with the steady beat of his heart beneath her head, with his arms around her, or the heat of his body against hers. Nothing at all.

Which is why, when she wakes for the third time from a dream of falling -- this time into a pit of fire, so at least that’s something of a variation -- she decides it’s time to get up. She isn’t likely to fall back asleep judging from the time, or the way her own heart is pounding, her skin practically crawling with adrenaline. 

She is _not_ going to lie here awake and just...what, allow him to hold her? No, that is not a thing she does when she is in her right mind. Her willingness to do it earlier was nothing more than an after-effect of the creature’s hold on her, its own sort of poison. Fortunately she is unaffected by that temporary insanity now, and she cares not at all about the loss of contact when she slips out of the bed and stands up. 

No, revise that: She is glad to be rid of it. Really. There is not one single iota of her consciousness that wants to get back into that bed, that wants to fall back into his arms. 

And sure, maybe she stands by the side of the bed for a few minutes after she gets up watching him sleep, but that’s only to make sure she didn’t wake him up. He’s a good person who needs his sleep, and it has nothing to do with how cute he may or may not look with his hair all mussed up and his mouth slightly open, the occasional little snore coming out of him. The urge to brush away that one curl of hair that’s sticking to his forehead is just because she likes neatness. 

So all in all, it’s super easy for her to tear herself away from him and to shut the door. 

She stands there, leaning against it for a while, listening for sounds of the others. It takes an unacceptable amount of effort to tune out the sound of Peter’s breathing and heart rate, which are in no way soothing, in order to hear anything else. 

They’re still en route to the Quadrant, and the Benatar’s day cycle hasn’t yet begun, so she’s not surprised that everyone else is still asleep. Well, everyone besides one other: There’s a familiar, mechanical rhythm coming from the gym, and Gamora’s feet carry her there without conscious thought, not quite at a run. 

She exhales a bit when she gets past the bunks with no sign of any of the others stirring. It’s not that she feels any real threat from them -- particularly not now, having seen how they’d all come together to save Peter from the Sons. She’s begun to feel closer to them than she did a few weeks ago, when any level of acceptance or camaraderie at all had seemed a total impossibility. But she still doesn’t truly feel like one of them, doesn’t feel like a Guardian or a member of their weird little family. And she certainly doesn’t feel comfortable on a level that would make her eager to face them after her complete and utter loss of control with the Xurcoils, after they have all seen her weakness on display. Not when she _still_ feels weak in more ways than one, all of her emotions dangerously close to the surface.

It’s a good thing Thanos is dead, because there is no telling what he would be able to make her do in this state. It’s a better thing that he never knew about or was never able to obtain a Xurcoils of his own. 

Sliding open the door of the gym, she finds Nebula going viciously at the punching bag, her brow glistening with sweat and her teeth bared in a fierce grimace.

Gamora approaches her until she’s only a little ways back, still out of range of any possible wide punches or flying punching bags. She expects Nebula to turn around and acknowledge her, as she must certainly have sensed her presence by now. But she doesn’t; she just keeps whaling on the punching bag. Perhaps she’s distracted enough by it that she didn’t notice Gamora’s approach. 

“Nebula,” she says, by way of announcing herself. She doesn’t want to interrupt her sister’s workout, but she sort of feels like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t talk to her. 

To her surprise, Nebula still doesn’t look at her, or stop assaulting the punching bag. All she does is spit out, _”What?”_ as she keeps hitting it. 

Gamora recoils slightly. She hadn’t been expecting that at all. Nebula has been so kind to her, so willing to talk and listen and _be sisters_. Perhaps that was all a trick after all? 

No, _no_. She would not do that. She’s just...in the training zone. 

“I need to talk to you,” Gamora says. Finally, Nebula stops, grabbing the punching bag to still it as it comes swinging back. She’s breathing heavily, and sweating much more than she normally does during a workout. She must have been at this for a long time. 

“What?” Nebula sneers. “You get bored of Quill?” 

Gamora takes an actual step back this time, stung. Okay, so Nebula clearly isn’t just in training mode. The voice of doubt tries to pipe up again, tries to tell her that this has all been a trap, that Nebula is somehow actually working with the Sons, that she has orchestrated all of this to put her in the path of the Xurcoils and--

But that’s crazy. She _knows_ that’s crazy. If Nebula wanted her to suffer, wanted to torture her, she would have had ample opportunity before now. And besides, it isn’t like Nebula to let others do her dirty work. When she inflicts pain, she likes to do it herself. 

Moreover, she owes her sister a little benefit of the doubt. The memories she's just been shown more than prove that. 

"He is asleep," Gamora says carefully. "And I wanted to talk to _you._ "

“Are you sure you don’t want to be alone with _Peter_ more?” Nebula snaps. 

“Oh,” Gamora says softly, realizing. “Nebula, is this about last night?” 

“Why would you think that?” she asks defensively, which 100% means that’s what it’s about. 

Gamora opens her mouth with half a mind to tease her sister about being jealous, but Nebula’s posture is so stiff, so guarded, that it gives her pause. This isn’t about petty jealousy; Nebula is actually hurt. 

Besides, she’s feeling far too raw to be anything but serious right now. She really does need to talk to her sister. 

“I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I just...That monster…” She swallows, unsure what exactly to say. It was _not_ that Peter felt strong and warm and safe, and the idea of being separated from him, or in the presence of anyone _besides_ him, made her feel sick to her stomach. 

"What?" asks Nebula, still with that same edge in her voice. "What did the monster do? Did it make you feel regret for trusting me? For helping me?"

"What?" Gamora echoes, though Nebula had used that word like a weapon, a challenge, while her own is practically a plea. "Why would you think--"

"It showed you regrets, did it not?" Nebula interrupts impatiently. "Moments you regretted. It made you relive them. So...was I what it showed you? Perhaps as children, or maybe even more recently. Did it show you when you saved me from him? When you decided to fight on my side? Did it remind you that _that_ was your biggest regret?"

"No!" Gamora scrubs a hand over her face, her own panic and sadness starting to turn to irritation. She knows Nebula is more than justified in these doubts, that it's probably been quite a feat to avoid showing them before now, but… But okay. Clearly she needs to be honest. "It showed me the first time-- the first time he pitted us against each other. And I _did_ regret it, terribly. But that isn't why I need to talk to you."

Nebula crosses her arms, a challenge. "Then why?"

Gamora takes a breath, tries to steel herself no matter how raw she might feel right now. "It showed me -- Knowhere. Peter trying to protect me from Thanos. Trying to -- to --" She breaks off, can't say it, though she knows Nebula knows what happened there. "And it showed me -- my death. The moment when he killed me to take the Stone. It showed me those things like I had _lived_ them."

Nebula’s eyes widen in shock, finally a reaction besides stiff anger. “It-- _what_?”

“I thought they were hallucinations at first,” Gamora continues. There’s a weight sitting on her chest; no, more like it’s squeezing at something in her chest. She can’t tell if telling Nebula about this is making it better or worse but she can’t seem to stop herself either way. “But Peter said that is what actually happened to--me. But not _this_ me.”

Nebula stares at her for a moment, long enough for that uncomfortable feeling in Gamora’s chest to make her wonder if coming to Nebula was the wrong idea. But then Nebula asks, “Have you had any other memories like that?” and Gamora can practically see her mind working, like she’s trying to collect and put together the pieces of a puzzle. 

This is part of why Gamora wanted to come to her. Most of it is because she’s her sister, and she wanted to tell her, but Nebula now is much more...thoughtful than the Nebula she knew in the past. Less apt to kill first and ask questions never. Not that the Nebula she knew never planned anything, but that was mostly revenge. She was never much interested in the why of anything. 

"I have been dreaming about falling from a cliff," Gamora admits. "Ever since -- Well, ever since he brought us to this timeline. At first it was vague and I thought it was just...well, you know."

"The usual nightmares," Nebula supplies. 

She nods. "Yes. The usual nightmares. But it has been becoming more and more vivid. More distinct. That is how she -- How I died, isn't it? Falling. Lying in the snow."

Nebula swallows, her throat working visibly. "Yes. That is how you died. For years, I thought it was just the result of a fight, of you trying to resist Thanos' taking the Stone. When Barton explained the sacrifice to me…" She trails off, shaking her head in disgust. 

Gamora pauses, considering that information. "If you did not know about the sacrifice, then how can you be certain of the circumstances of my death?"

Nebula stays silent for even longer this time, so long that by the time she speaks, Gamora is wondering whether she somehow hasn't heard or if it's intended to be an outright refusal to share the information. When she finally does speak, her voice is low and tight. "In the years after Thanos' victory, I did many things. Including going to Vormir. I wanted to give you a proper burial. Instead I found your body -- ruined by the fall, entombed in ice so thick that it was a hopeless cause. I have not told this to anyone. Not even Rocket or Quill."

“Oh,” Gamora breathes, unable to help picturing it. It is strange, the idea that her body, but also not her body, is out there… She shakes her head to dispel that thought. It is horrifying, but not as bad as the other images that have been running through her mind. And not nearly as bad as the idea of having to see her own sister like that, of having to live for five years thinking -- no, _knowing_ \-- that she was dead. 

“Thank you,” she continues. She reaches out to touch Nebula’s arm and is grateful that she doesn’t pull away, though she’s still somewhat stiff. “For trying to do that for me. And I’m sorry you had to see that.” She is also grateful that nobody else had to know about that, especially Peter. Though she’s sure he’s pictured worse. 

Nebula grunts, but Gamora can tell she’s not unaffected. “You did not make me do it.” 

“So.” Gamora clears her throat, drops her hand. “So that me is definitely dead, then. Peter brought up that you and the past Nebula shared some memories, so--”

Nebula shakes her head. “Quill is a moron.” Gamora’s about to protest, but Nebula keeps going and Gamora doesn’t want to interrupt her, because she seems to be gathering more puzzle pieces. “I had thought that the reason I shared some memories with my past self was because our brains are machines, sharing the same network… But perhaps it was something else.”

“Like what?” Gamora asks, hoping for a definite answer so she can stop being so damn confused. 

“I don’t know,” Nebula says. “I will look into it.” 

“Look into it how?” she asks, wondering what resources her sister might have gathered in those years that are a blank for so many others. She hopes that Nebula might have an answer, or at least an easy way of getting one. Perhaps she has had time to form connections with more benevolent powerful people, has had time to collect knowledge of things like Gamora had with the Stone.

Nebula shrugs, though. “Nova Prime might know something. Or might know who to ask.”

Gamora blinks, surprised despite herself. “You know Nova Prime on a personal basis?”

Now Nebula’s expression changes to a smirk. “You are not the only one known as a hero on Xandar. They may have built a memorial to you, but Rocket and I were the ones who helped keep them out of danger with half the Corps gone.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Gamora allows, then realizes how that sounds. She takes a breath, blows it out. “I am -- happy for you, that you found a fulfilling purpose.”

Nebula rolls her eyes in response to that, though Gamora thinks she can see a hint of pride in her expression anyway. “Give me a break. You went soft quickly before, but this…” She shakes her head in mock sadness before turning serious again. “Was that all you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes,” says Gamora. “I will leave you to your training.” She watches as Nebula starts at the bag again, gets halfway to the door and then the words that have been tickling at the back of her throat come spilling out before she’s even gotten a chance to turn around again. “That _thing_ made me feel how much I loved him.”

She turns back around in time to see that Nebula has paused again, holding the bag still. She gives Gamora a look. “Did you not believe me when I told you?”

“No, I--I did,” she says. It’s an effort to remain sounding calm when her insides feel like they’re all roiling about, like she doesn’t have organs anymore but instead a weird, jumbled mess of emotions. “But...I did not know it was even possible for me to feel something like that. It was--overwhelming, how much I loved him.” 

“And how do you feel about him now?” Nebula asks, with a pointed glance at her abdomen. 

“That is nothing,” Gamora says automatically, her hand going protectively to her abdomen as if she can hide it when it’s already covered by clothes, and she’s already _told_ her sister; her sister who gives her a look, prompting her to add, “It is confusing.”

Nebula sighs and seems to finally give up on the punching bag, because she lets it go to walk closer to Gamora. “So you came here to talk about your feelings?” 

“Nevermind,” Gamora says quickly, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. “Forget I said anything.” She turns to try to hurry out the door but she’s stopped by Nebula’s hand on her shoulder. She turns back around slowly. 

“Look,” Nebula says, something almost apologetic about her tone. “I know this is a strange thing for you to deal with; finally knowing how much you loved a moron.” 

“He is not--” Gamora begins, then cuts herself off. Was she really about to say that Peter is not a moron? Those were the words that came instinctively to mind, though of course they aren’t true. She is certain that they aren’t true, that for all of the good qualities she might be starting to appreciate, he is _still_ an idiot. Doesn’t the fact that he tried to talk her out of saving him from the Xurcoils, of facing it herself, prove him a fool? And yet--

Nebula smirks. “Were you about to tell me that Quill is not a moron?”

Gamora crosses her arms immediately. “No. That is not what I -- Peter is -- He -- “ He is most definitely a moron, so why won’t those words come out? They’ve always felt so natural before. This must be an after-effect of the Xurcoils, nothing more serious than that. Perhaps that _temporary_ insanity lasts longer than she had previously thought. “He is good to me. _You_ were right about that.”

“I know,” says Nebula. “And you are right too. He is _not_ a moron. He frequently acts like one, but it is only an act. Quill is sharp, in his own way. And honorable. And good to you. Though he frequently makes decisions I cannot understand.”

“Then why did you tell me he was a moron?” asks Gamora, frustrated, trying not to feel betrayed.

“Would you have believed me if I hadn’t let you figure it out for yourself?” she asks, still looking immensely pleased with herself.

“I--you--” Gamora would sputter if she did anything as undignified as sputter. Nebula actually _laughs_ and Gamora can’t help but smile slightly. “That was devious. Where did you learn that kind of deception? You certainly did not learn it from Thanos.”

Nebula smirks. “Obviously not. I learned it from the morons.”

Gamora can’t help but laugh, a small laugh that could _almost_ be disguised as a harsh exhale if Nebula didn’t know her so well. “You just said--”

“Hey, some of them _are_ morons,” Nebula says with a careless shrug. “But that not-quite-a-moron loves you.”

“I--no,” Gamora might actually sputter this time. “He loves--he loved _her_. And I am not--”

Nebula groans and rolls her eyes. “I thought we were past this.” 

“No, I know,” Gamora says, shaking her head. “I--but he...As soon as I told him about the memory, he asked if that meant the _other_ me could still be alive.”

Nebula looks unimpressed. “Did you not just come storming in here dramatically to ask me about the same thing?” 

Gamora opens her mouth, then closes it again. That’s -- totally not the same thing, she wants to say, but doesn’t know how she’ll follow it up when Nebula inevitably asks her _why_. So instead, when she opens her mouth again she says, “If I am dramatic, I learned it from you, sister.” 

Nebula laughs, though it’s not entirely cruel. “Are you serious, sister? You have always been by far the most dramatic of our siblings. Not even because _he_ made you that way. You were _born_ for dramatics, Gamora.”

She scoffs, tries to tell herself that she doesn’t feel any sense of pride at the mention of being the best at something, anything. She knows Nebula will see straight through it, though, so she sighs and shakes her head. “Fine. I wanted to talk to you about the possibility that she might still be alive and that our memories might be entangled, like yours. Not because I thought it had anything to do with Peter or any of what that stupid _thing_ forced me to feel.”

“All right,” Nebula says dismissively. “You have absolutely no interest in him or his feelings for you. It wouldn’t matter at all to you if he only ever loved someone else. You would not be jealous at all. God, I am _glad_ I wasn’t around for this phase the first time. I think I might have killed you both myself.”

“I believe you said you did try to do that,” Gamora points out, but she can’t help smiling at her sister’s exasperation. It is comforting somehow. Familiar.

“You are incorrigible, Gamora,” Nebula says with a shake of her head. 

Sensing a lighter mood, Gamora crosses her arms and says, “And _you_ were not jealous at all last night that I wanted to be with Peter.” 

Nebula narrows her eyes. “Correct. I was not. I would never be jealous of him.” 

Gamora shrugs a shoulder casually. “Well, I was going to apologize again if you were, but as you were not...” 

Nebula crosses her arms as well, a challenging tilt to her chin. “Good thing I was not.” 

“Good thing.” Gamora presses her lips together to keep laughter in. She still feels a mess, still feels raw and confused and lost, but it’s nice to know she can enjoy these lighter moments with her sister. 

“Did you hug him?” Nebula asks so suddenly that Gamora’s smile drops in surprise. 

“What?” she asks, confused at the apparent change of subject. 

“Quill,” Nebula repeats. “Did you hug him last night?” 

“Yes,” Gamora says slowly. She figures being held by him for hours, a memory that does _not_ make her chest feel warm, counts as hugging. 

“Then you owe me a hug as well,” Nebula declares, dropping her arms but not moving toward her. It is her move, Gamora realizes. 

“Oh, yes,” Gamora says, not hiding her smile as she hugs her sister. “You are not jealous at all.” 

"He is too much a moron to be jealous of," Nebula sniffs as Gamora steps back, in contradiction to pretty much everything she's just said. 

"And too much a moron to be in love with," she says, then realizes her mistake: Nebula is jealous, but Gamora is _not_ in love. She will never be in love, and certainly not with him, silver blush and Xurcoils memory be damned. 

Nebula shakes her head but doesn't call her out, which is somehow even more unnerving. "We will be docking with the Quadrant soon," she says instead. "You might want to change into something less...well, blood stained. Much as the aesthetic might be appealing."

Gamora looks down at herself and realizes she's still in the dress the Nova Corps had provided. It isn't nice anymore, though, the skirt ripped in several places from their capture at the club, and then later their fight with the Sons. And there _are_ some blood stains on it, though she's pretty sure those are from Peter's injured wrists. Somehow that's better than having bodily fluids from the Sons anywhere near her. But that is because they are repulsive. _Not_ because she feels anything special toward Peter.

"Good idea," she allows. 

“I know,” Nebula says, once again heading back to the punching bag to continue her workout. “You should always listen to me.” 

Gamora snorts, but not unkindly, and heads out of the gym. Of course, as soon as she does she remembers that all of her clothes are in her -- _that_ room where Peter still is. She pauses in the hallway, frozen at the thought of returning to that room, seeing him still asleep. The thought of crawling back into bed with him flits through her mind and she shakes her head fiercely to dispel it. She _does not_ want that. She doesn’t. 

And to prove it, she is going to march -- very quietly and quickly -- back into the room, grab a change of clothes, and come back out without waking him or even looking at him. She’s quiet and stealthy enough to get in and out without making a noise, just like she did without waking him earlier. 

Determined, she continues back to the room and pushes the door open, careful not to make a sound. He’ll never even know she came and went, she thinks.

But when she gets inside, she finds the bed empty and unmade, and a very much awake Peter standing in front of the closet, naked except for a towel around his waist. 

She freezes instantly, horrified. It isn’t as though he’s actually _idecent_ \-- well, at least as far as she knows. She hasn’t exactly researched Terran genitalia, but if he is anything like other humanoid species, then he seems to have the most -- no, she is not going to think _intimate_ , that word is too much for this occasion -- _crucial_ bits covered. Still, she feels her cheeks flush again as she looks at his back, takes in the muscles and the planes of it, along with the barely-there smattering of freckles on his shoulders. She has the urge to put her hand against it again, to touch his bare skin and --

“Hey Gamora!” he says brightly, turning around. 

She intends to look away, to look at the floor or at anything else -- but instead finds herself staring at his chest, his abdomen, the sparse line of hair running down from his navel to vanish under the towel. She shakes herself, letting anger cover her embarrassment. “Why the hell was the door unlocked if you aren’t dressed?”

He blinks, then shrugs, seemingly unperturbed by either her intrusion or her anger. “Well it was, but the lock works on biometrics. It’s keyed to both yours and mine, so…”

“Oh,” she says. She knew that. She is having trouble thinking of what else to say to that, though, because a drop of water just fell off of a strand of Peter’s wet hair and is now making its way down his neck, past his collar bones, down his chest… She has the absurd thought that she’d like to lick it off of him. 

“Hey, Gamora,” Peter says, and her eyes snap back up to his face. _Shit_ , how obvious was her staring? Is he smirking? “Where did you go?” Oh, he’s definitely smirking. 

“What?” she asks defensively. She’s already prepared to tell him that she was just looking him over for injuries she missed last night, or trying to figure out the best place to stab him. 

“You know, when you left,” he says, gesturing to the door. He’s still got that irritating tilt to his lips. 

“I went to the gym,” she says, deciding that he would definitely misread the situation if she told him she went to find Nebula to talk about what happened yesterday. 

His eyebrows go up and this time it’s his eyes that sweep down her body. “I know you’re impressive, but you worked out in that?” 

She looks down at herself, sees the dress again and remembers that her goal in coming back here was to change into something less ridiculous prior to their rendezvous with the Quadrant, a ship that seems as misleadingly named as many of the Terran items Peter’s described. Still, probably best not to try and convince him that she did an actual workout in this. That would just lead to more questions, and also make her seem like a fool.

“No,” she says carefully. “I -- went to the gym, but I was intercepted by Nebula, who --” She cuts herself off again, realizing that she was about to use her sister as an outright scapegoat. It’s a familiar habit, but not one she ought to be even considering right now. That is the sort of thing Thanos would have encouraged, and it is not fair. “I wanted her to know that I was all right.”

His expression turns knowing in a way that she hasn’t expected. “Let me guess. She was jealous? That you wanted my help last night and not hers?”

Gamora blinks, her mind feeling sluggish, which definitely has nothing to do with the fact that he still isn’t wearing a damned shirt and appears completely unconcerned about that fact. “What?”

“She always pretended she didn’t care,” Peter explains. There’s something softer about his expression now, his smile less teasing and more...fond. “But she wanted all your attention when she was around. Still does. She just wants her big sister’s time.” 

“Oh,” Gamora says quietly, a warm affection seeping into her chest. Not that she wasn’t already affectionate towards Nebula, but knowing that she cared that much...That she had two people, a sister and a boyfriend, competing for her attention...is strange; and strangely pleasing. 

She does not want to say any of that to Peter, though. “She was not jealous. She does not get jealous.” 

Peter snorts. “Sure.”

“But I cannot work out in this,” Gamora says, deciding she needs to steer the subject away. Peter seems to know Nebula very well, but she doesn’t want to risk betraying her sister’s confidence anyway. “I just came to get a change of clothes and then I will be out of your way.” 

“You’re not in my way,” Peter says with a shrug. He’s leaning against the edge of the small closet, his massive body taking up almost the entire entrance to it. His shoulders really are stupidly wide. 

“Well, you are in mine,” she says stiffly. 

He laughs and steps back. “All you had to do was say so.” He crosses his arms and leans against the wall next to the closet instead, back to smirking again. She wonders how precariously close the towel might be to falling off his body entirely. Not that she has any desire whatsoever for that to happen.

“Do Terrans have a concept of modesty?” she asks, not making a move toward the closet yet even though the entrance is now unobstructed. She would have to walk past him to do that, and she has an odd sense of trepidation about doing that. Not that she fears him -- she knows he is not a threat in any way. Yet she has the odd paranoid thought that if she gets too close while he is in nothing but a towel, he will be able to sense -- well, not attraction, because she is _not_ attracted to him. But whatever malfunction is causing her abdomen to be silver. 

“Well yeah,” says Peter. “That’s what this is for.” He points to the towel that’s slipping perilously lower around his hips, as if it sensed her earlier thoughts. “You shoulda seen me before I had a crew. Every day was no pants day!”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “I am glad I did not see you then.”

He shrugs, still unperturbed. “I know your people are bigger on modesty than mine. No worries. You want me to go get dressed in the bathroom?”

That would be ideal, she thinks, if he would just go and do it. Except now he’s asked her preference, so her answer will have meaning. It feels like a challenge, a show of weakness if she admits that seeing him in this state means anything to her at all. What she wants to communicate to him is that it does not matter, that she does not care. 

“I don’t care,” she tells him very eloquently.

“Fine,” he says with a shrug. He shifts so he’s once again blocking the closet with his body. It really is his disgustingly broad shoulders that take up the most room; the line of his back tapers down towards his hips, where there’s another bead of water making its way towards that towel that’s barely covering up his ass now. 

Once he’s grabbed a few articles of clothing from the closet he moves back and tosses them onto the bed. “Turn around if you want to.” Then with no more warning than that, he’s undoing the tie on his towel and she catches a glimpse of hip bone and the beginning of the curve of his ass before she whips around to face away from him as fast as she physically can. 

“Peter!” she exclaims, feeling her cheeks heat almost as fast as her abdomen. 

“What?” he says, voice full of feigned innocence. “You said you didn’t care.” 

“I--” she sputters. She curls her hands into fists and squeezes her eyes shut purely because she’s infuriated, and not because she’s having trouble willing herself to not to turn _back_ around. “You are insufferable!”

“So you’ve said,” he says fondly. 

“ _I_ am going to change in the bathroom, then!” she says, grabbing some of her own clothes from the closet. 

“All right,” he says, still sounding annoyingly unaffected by all of this. “But you might wanna wait a second unless you wanna see me not being very modest.” 

She grits her teeth, huffs in irritation, then decisively strides into the closet and shuts the door behind herself. It’s tiny and cramped, not to mention dark. But it’s still far from the worst place she’s ever changed, and it puts a solid barrier between herself and Peter’s naked ass.

“Hey!” his voice comes through the thin panel, which is apparently opaque but not very helpful when it comes to muffling sound. His tone is filled with surprise, and she wonders whether he’s turned around to look after her, and whether he’s actually put any pants on yet. “Hey, did you just put yourself in the closet?”

“Yes,” says Gamora. Her eyes are beginning to adapt to the dimmer light in here, and she starts groping around for a change of clothes. She locates a pair of leggings easily and pulls those on under her dress, then pulls that off and begins looking around for a shirt. “If that is what it takes to get away from you.” 

He goes silent for a few moments, during which she locates what seems to be a reasonable shirt in her size and pulls it on. 

“Are you dressed?” she asks, and waits for his noise of assent before stepping back out into the main room.

He _is_ dressed, as promised, but now she’s struck by his face, by his expression, which is impossibly soft as he takes her in. 

“Hey,” he says gently. “I’m sorry if I -- I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. That’s the last thing I want.”

“You didn’t,” she says stiffly. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, not appearing at all reassured. He’s fidgeting with the empty holster on the side of his pants, his fingers restless. 

She softens, her shoulders untensing as she realizes that look she’s seeing on his face is _guilt_. “Truly, Peter. You didn’t make me uncomfortable. You are just exasperating at times. Very exasperating.” 

His lips twitch up in a tentative smile, different from the amused, almost smug smirks he’d been throwing her way ever since she walked back in here. It’s a disgustingly endearing expression. 

“I think you mean charming,” he says, and she barely restrains herself from throwing the nearest object -- which happens to be one of his boots that he’s just left lying around on the closet floor -- at his face. She gives him a look instead, and he adds, “Okay, just tell me if I’m being too charming, okay? And I’ll dial it down. Or you could always kick me in the crotch. That gets the message across, too.”

She laughs just slightly, relieved as she feels the tension in the room ease. “I will take you up on that.” 

“Maybe I should wear a protective cup,” he says, glancing down at his pants. “I’m super charming, you know.”

“If that is what you are choosing to call it--” she begins, then is interrupted by the ship suddenly rocking, causing Peter to stumble slightly. She manages to stay perfectly still, but then she runs to the nightstand by the bed to grab her sword. “What was that?” 

“Nothing, we just arrived at the Quadrant,” Peter says, holding his hands up as if to placate her. “It’s fine. Rocket always docks too quickly.” 

“Are you certain?” she asks, heart still pounding, senses on edge. She can’t help remembering how recently they were ambushed, how it had felt to learn that there are still others sympathetic to Thanos alive in the galaxy. How it had felt even worse to be captured, to spend hours wondering whether she was watching Peter die in front of her while there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Suddenly she wants to take back everything she’s just said about him being exasperating, being immodest and immature. She wants to protect him and his stupid, vulnerable back. 

“For certain I’m certain!” he says brightly, and then grins in a way that’s so stupid it immediately gives her emotional whiplash. 

“Well,” says Gamora, “then I suppose I have managed to change just in time.”

Peter shakes his head, still grinning. “Nah. I like you just the way you are.”

She rolls her eyes and resists the urge to groan at such a terrible pun. But the words aren’t lost on her, and they seem not to be on him either. His expression turns more serious again, and for an instant she thinks he’s about to get that guilt-sick look again, about to take back the sentiment or otherwise undercut it. Instead he just smiles very tenderly.

Suddenly she can’t come up with anything at all to say, so instead she busies herself with attaching her sword to her belt. 

“But hey,” Peter says brightly. “Good news! The closets on the Quadrant are much bigger. You could probably even dance in there if you wanted.”

“I do not dance,” Gamora says firmly, and heads off in the direction of the cockpit.

* * *

“And this is the target practice room!” Peter says grandly, gesturing to the large space on their right that’s separated from the hall only by an archway rather than a real door. That was perhaps not the best choice for a room where there are frequent blaster shots and sharp objects being thrown around but hey, this ship was designed by Ravagers. 

“It is nice,” Gamora says, taking it in. Peter watches her face for recognition, but just as with all the other areas he’s shown her on this tour of the Quadrant, she’s showing no signs that she finds any of it familiar. She’s looking at it all as if she’s never seen any of it before. Which, of course, she hasn’t; this Gamora hasn’t. But if she has _some_ memories from her past-future self, then why wouldn’t she have others?

Though he has no answer to why she _does_ have any of those memories. That is not the point, though. 

“It’s mostly me that uses it,” he continues, trying to be covert in watching her face. Maybe telling her something about the room will jog some memories. “But you and Drax use it too sometimes for throwing knives. And Kraglin uses it for the arrow.” 

“Drax throws his knives?” she asks, looking vaguely alarmed. For a moment he has a rush of hope that she might be recalling one of the times he’s tried to do that with disastrous results, but the genuine surprise on her face dissuades him pretty quickly. 

“Yeah,” says Peter. “Or, you know, he tries. They usually end up falling short, or just kinda bludgeoning people...and things. For a while you tried to convince him that it would be more strategic to throw tiny little daggers, because that was what you liked. But he never really listened and you just kinda gave up. You’ve seen how Drax is.”

She nods. “Good for when the situation calls for brute force. Not so much when nuance is needed.”

“He doesn’t know the meaning of nuance,” Peter agrees. He’s about to lead her on down the hall when she pauses, gets the look he recognizes as having something she wants to say but is uncertain about sharing. He decides to help her along. “What?”

“I -- have throwing knives? Plural?” she asks, in that wistful tone that means she really wants something she believes is out of her reach.

“Oh, yeah!” he says. He’d forgotten that most of those knives were acquired after they’d met the first time. She’d only had one before; he’d had a cut on the back of his hand for weeks to prove it. And even that one it seems she’d acquired after being dispatched to Ronan’s ship, an experience she’s missing now. “You have lots! All kinds of different knives, and daggers and stuff. C’mon, they’re in our room! I’ll show you!”

“All right,” she says, sounding wary but following him as he starts down the hall again. It’s only a short distance, as this had been the destination when he’d started this Quadrant tour. He could tell Gamora was overwhelmed once they finally got the whole team awake and off the Benatar, even before he’d brought up re-introducing her to Kraglin. Sensing that she’d want some privacy, he offered her this exclusive Star-Lord tour that has nothing at all to do with hoping she’ll reveal some more memories she has from her other self. 

And if any place on this ship is gonna jog her memory, it’s the room they shared for four years. 

He struts up to the door to their room, and for a second he hesitates. What if it’s actually not the way it used to be? This ship has essentially belonged to Kraglin for the past five years that Peter’s missed. Nebula and Rocket used it too, but apparently they had mainly lived on the Benatar. Perhaps Kraglin might have changed this room? Or taken it back, as it is technically the captain’s quarters. 

“Are you okay?” Gamora asks from next to him. 

“Yeah, perfectly fine!” Peter says. Only one way to find out, he figures, and resolutely pushes open the door. 

The room, it turns out, _is_ exactly the way they'd left it, right down to the unmade bed. Standing outside with the door closed, he'd thought it would be a relief to find things unchanged, but this might actually be worse. 

The sight of it transports him immediately five years that feel like five weeks back in his memory, as though he might actually have stepped onto Stark's time platform. It's this bed he's been dreaming about, this bed where the memory of Gamora's been haunting him, accusing him of replacing her. 

It's also this bed he thinks about when he replays that disastrous day from the beginning, though they'd already gotten out of it by the time the distress call had come in. Still, he can't help remembering what it was like to lie under these blankets with Gamora in his arms, his fingers curled into her hair. It had been a good morning -- one in a pretty long string of good mornings, actually. Peaceful. Safe. All at once, he wonders whether either of them will ever feel those things again, whether they'll ever be able to move past--

"Hey," says Gamora, her hand on his back making him jump, bringing him crashing back into the present. "Breathe."

He takes a deep breath, focusing on her face, on the familiar, concerned expression on it. She’s here, she’s -- not his right now, maybe, but she _is_ the same Gamora, even if he doesn’t fully understand it. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he says quickly. 

“Are you sure?” she asks. Her hand is still on his back. He hopes she doesn’t move it. 

“Yeah, of course,” he says casually. “So, uh, this is our room!” He gestures grandly to it, as if she might have missed it. She wasn’t really paying attention to it before, though, since she was concerned about him. So now, he watches her face carefully as her eyes scan over the room; her face lights up a little when she sees the fluffy rug in front of the large bed, the dark blue sheets, the vanity that’s full of her hair and make-up products, the weapons that take up an entire wall. He doesn’t think any of that is recognition, just interest, and that desire to have something she doesn’t think she can. 

“This is all…” She trails off, still staring around the room. She doesn’t seem able to finish that sentence, and Peter’s not sure if she was going to say _mine_ or _ours_ or _hers_. 

“Yeah!” he says anyway. “We had to do a lot of re-decorating. It was very Ravagery when we first moved in.” 

"Ravagery?" she echoes. It's pretty clearly a diversion to avoid looking at the room in more detail right now, but she's also obviously overwhelmed, so he decides to go with it. He knows better than to push her when she's uncertain about something like this, knows that she needs time to process and move past her insecurities. 

"Yeah," he repeats, though with less forced enthusiasm this time. "You know...dark, grungy. Lots of random junk everywhere. Some of it was pretty horrifying, actually. You were not a fan of the rotten food they had just...kinda stashed around."

She wrinkles her nose, apparently imagining that. That cleanup had been surprisingly rough on her, with her enhanced senses. She doesn't seem to remember it now, though, and Peter decides he's fine with it if she never gets that particular one back. 

"I can't imagine that I was," she says cautiously. 

"Don't worry," he promises. "All that stuff is long gone." He decides he's gonna kill Kraglin if he turns out to be wrong about that. 

“I suppose I made sure of that?” Gamora asks. Her eyes keep scanning the room, either looking for something gross or taking in all this nice stuff that he knows she never believed she could have; probably both. 

“And I helped!” he says. Though he wouldn’t have bothered if Gamora hadn’t wanted it clean so much. He’d been used to Ravager filth, after all. But he’d do anything for her… “Wanna see all your knives?” He gestures enthusiastically towards that wall. 

“I don’t know…” she says. He sees her fingers twitch, though, and her eyes are focused on that wall now, which means she wants to but doesn’t want to admit it. 

“C’mon, you’ll love ‘em!” Peter says, heading that way. It’s the wall opposite the door, and this room is so big, especially compared to their quarters on the Benatar, that they actually can’t see details of the knives from the entrance. 

“All right,” she says, as if she is indulging him. But he doesn’t miss how quickly she follows him, and the way her eyes widen as she more closely examines everything along the wall. They are mostly knives, but there are a couple of daggers and smaller swords as well. 

She exhales in a long, wistful sigh that she probably intends to be more measured, coming to a stop in front of the wall. She sweeps her eyes across it again and then reaches out to lightly touch a couple of the blades, as though trying to convince herself that they're real. 

"These are your throwing knives," says Peter, sweeping his hand across one side of the wall where the blades are tiny and light, though no less deadly. "You only like to use them when absolutely necessary, though, because it makes you kinda sad when you don't get them back."

"That is a foolish and unstrategic attachment," she says stiffly, in that tone that means she isn't really even succeeding at convincing herself. "I don't know that I can imagine myself feeling that way."

"Oh, but you do," says Peter. "Your knives are basically your babies."

"He gave me a knife," Gamora says sadly, an undercurrent of shame in her tone. "The day he killed my parents and took me. He gave me this -- _beautiful_ carved dagger. Sometimes I feel like I sold my soul for that knife."

His chest clenches and he has to remind himself to breathe again. He knows that dagger, knows it well; it’s the one she was playing with that day that she made him promise— 

“Your soul is yours,” he promises her, though he chokes slightly on the word _soul_ because it makes him think of that cursed Stone. “And so is this knife!” He takes down one of the sharpest, most intricately carved knives from the wall down and holds it out to her. He watches her face anxiously, looking for any sign of recognition. 

“Is that—a Badoon blade?” Gamora asks breathlessly. She reaches out towards it tentatively with one finger, but doesn’t touch it, as if afraid she’s going to break it with the slightest contact. 

“Yeah!” he says, still eagerly watching her. She doesn’t seem to be getting a memory, but hey, watching her be amazed by this all over again is nice too. “I gave it to you as a present.” 

“These are so valuable,” she says, looking at him with disbelief. 

“Well yeah,” says Peter, holding the knife a bit closer to her, urging her to take it. “And you’re the most important thing in the galaxy to me.” 

Gamora inhales audibly, gets that painfully familiar, achingly vulnerable look like she might actually cry again. It’s the same look he saw last night, when he’d kissed her forehead instinctively, before he’d even known about her memories. It’s the same look he knows she always gets at unexpected acts of tenderness, of intimacy. Even after four years together, he’d still seen it occasionally.

“Peter,” she breathes, her voice rough. She reaches out and touches the hilt of the knife, her fingers shaking badly. She still doesn’t take it, though, seems not to trust herself to do it. “You don’t mean that. You don’t mean _me._ ”

He does, though. The words aren’t a mistake, aren’t the same kind of instinctive oversight he’s been stumbling into for the past few weeks. He’s chosen them deliberately -- a bit as yet another test, yet another attempt to bring back more memories. It’s the kind of statement that’s always affected her profoundly, so if anything was going to do it now...But he isn’t about to take them back, either. Even as he feels another pull of guilt at the memory of his dreams, he knows they’re true. She _is_ the most important thing in the galaxy to him, now and always, whatever that might mean.

“Yes, I do,” he says softly, solemnly. 

“Because I...because of the memories?” Gamora asks, avoiding his eyes. Her fingers are tentatively tracing the knife’s hilt, a bit of a nervous twitch in them. 

“No,” Peter says honestly. “Because you are you. No matter what time you’re from, or what memories you may or may not have.” Saying it, he knows it to be true, even though he still has to fight the part of himself that feels a surge of guilt, that can’t stop seeing the image of his nightmares. 

Gamora lifts her eyes to his face, and if he’s not mistaken, he sees a little glimmer of hope shining in them. She doesn’t say anything, but she does slowly take the knife and lift it out of his hands. She holds it carefully, tracing her finger along the flat side of the blade with a familiar reverence. She handled it exactly the same way when he’d first given it to her. 

As if her thoughts are following the same path, she asks, “When did you give this to--me?” 

“Early on,” he says, watching her fingers, her expression, as she continues taking in the knife. “I liked to...like to kind of make up anniversaries to give you presents for. You’d pretend to be annoyed, because I never told you in advance, so you didn’t have something to give me in return.” He smiles fondly, and a bit sadly. “But I just like giving you stuff. This one was for the five month anniversary of the first time we danced together.” 

"That is -- very specific," says Gamora. She finally wraps her fingers around the hilt of the knife like she's going to actually use it, carefully makes a few slow arcs through the air with it. She's feeling how it's balanced, he knows, because she'd taught him about her knives years ago.

"Oh, that's not even close to the most specific one I came up with," says Peter. "That honor might have to go to the hair ornaments I got you in celebration of the thirteen day anniversary of the first time I managed to braid your hair right on the first try."

Her lips twitch, don't quite manage to form a smile though the thought is definitely there. "You kept track of all of that? All of those firsts?" 

"Well yeah," says Peter, shrugging. "I mean -- I had imagined all of those things enough times, getting to actually do all of them was --" He breaks off, realizing that he's saying this aloud. He'd told her about all of his daydreams involving her before too, but they'd already been solidly together at that point. "-- totally not as weird as it sounds. Hey look! This knife was a Valkyrie blade. You found it in a junker shop and fixed it up!"

She redirects her gaze and her eyes widen again, but she keeps her grip on the Badoon knife; it always was her favorite, Peter remembers happily. 

“It was in a _junker_ shop?” Gamora asks, appalled. She’d been appalled when she first saw it too, thrown on a shelf, left to rust. It just needed someone to clean it up, take good care of it, she’d said. And she did. 

“Yeah, it was in pretty bad shape,” he explains. “Chipped and rusty. It’s still chipped in a couple places, but we thought that made it more unique.” He points out some of the small imperfections that remain on the blade. “Everyone’s got scars, after all.” 

“It is beautiful,” she says, throat working as she swallows. “Here.” She holds the Badoon knife out to him, though she seems reluctant to part with it. 

“You sure?” he asks. “You can keep it on you if you want.” 

“I am sure,” she says, holding it out more insistently. “It deserves its place of honor.” 

Peter puts the knife back on the display hooks it came from. “Well, it’s here whenever you want it!” 

“I will enjoy looking at it on the wall on occasion,” says Gamora, tense again, uncomfortable with something. He’s pretty sure it’s that same old insecurity, the doubts that she is or ever will be the kind of person who could have this stuff. It makes his heart ache, knowing how long it had taken her to move past those feelings even a little bit. 

He has the sense that it will be harder for her this time, paradoxical as that might seem. Knowing that she had them before seems somehow to only increase her doubts, to convince her that she is not that person. He feels a fresh wave of guilt at that -- different from the guilt he was feeling just a few minutes ago. He can’t deny now that some of her doubts are his fault, perpetuated by both his misplaced resentment of her early on and the grief that he can’t seem to let go of entirely.

“It does look good on the wall,” says Peter, wanting to convince her otherwise, but afraid to push. Instead he decides to change the focus again. “Hey, wanna see your vanity? If you thought you had a lot of hair and makeup stuff on the Benatar, then you’re in for a really nice surprise here!”

“Okay,” she says quietly, still sounding unsure, but Peter doesn’t let that discourage him. Even if this stuff doesn’t spark her memories right away, maybe it’ll help over time. 

His heart stops a bit when he sees the vanity up close. So many of her things are spread out on it in a way that suggests she’d just been using it. Kraglin and the others really must not have moved a thing in here, though just like their quarters on the Benatar, they appear to have occasionally cleaned it. 

“It’s so much.” Gamora’s breathless voice interrupts his thoughts, which he doesn’t mind one bit. Especially with the way she’s gaping at the items on the vanity: her brush, her favorite hair oil, plus some hair ties and ornaments. 

“This isn’t even most of it!” Peter says enthusiastically. He pulls open the drawer just above the chair to reveal its organized contents of other hair accessories. He hears Gamora gasp and grins at her, though she still doesn’t appear to be finding any of this familiar. “These are the first ones I ever got you.” He points out a set of small, yellow flower ornaments. 

“They are beautiful,” she says, her voice incredibly soft. 

“They’re more beautiful on you,” says Peter. He reaches into the drawer and picks them up very carefully, like they’re much more fragile than they actually are. He shifts them into the palm of his hand and holds them out to her, thinking for a moment that they look eerily similar to the yellow flowers on the shirt she’d chosen on that first shopping trip, the first time -- _this_ time -- that she’d selected something for herself.

Gamora takes half a step closer, catches her lower lip between her teeth but doesn’t make any move to take the ornaments. She looks uncharacteristically young, a harsh reminder that she is four years younger than the woman he remembers, though it’s not like she had aged so very much in that time. More than that, he thinks, he can see the child she never got to be when she longs to have something she really, really wants.

“Put them on,” he urges gently. Then he decides to take a chance and closes one of his hands around hers, pouring the ornaments into her palm.

She tenses a bit but doesn’t drop them, just looks at them with the same reverent disbelief when he pulls away. She takes a breath, swallows visibly again. “I -- would, but --”

“But that’s a private thing?” he guesses, knowing that’s exactly what it is, though it makes his heart ache to think that he’s lost that privilege. Or hasn’t yet regained it, he tries to tell himself. “Let me show you the bathroom, then.”

“Bathroom?” Gamora asks, sounding confused. It takes him a second before it dawns on him that of course she wouldn’t know why that’s significant. 

“Oh, yeah,” he says eagerly. “Did I not tell you about the bathroom?” She shakes her head and he elaborates. “I actually gave you those hair ornaments at the same time as the bathroom!”

If anything, that appears to confuse her more. “Did we not have a bathroom before?”

“Well, yeah, we did,” Peter says. “But it was a dinky Ravagery one. You didn’t like it. So after we moved in here, we redid it! We fixed up the shower and the sink, and we went out and bought some new towels and stuff. And you really wanted a bathtub, but you thought it was too indulgent so you wouldn’t get one. But then I surprised you by getting a super nice, huge one, with lights and jets!” 

Her eyes are wide again by the end of his description. “Jets?”

“Yeah, like--water jets!” he says. “They’re super cool, trust me. Or actually--don’t take my word for it! Come see!” 

He practically leaps over towards the bathroom door, but Gamora doesn’t follow. He stops, doubles back and holds out his hand for her to take. “Come on, I promise it won’t disappoint!” 

“I…” She looks between his hand, the bathroom door, and the ornaments in her hand. “I can’t.” 

Peter frowns, surprised by her response. Sure, she’s in disbelief about the bathroom being as awesome as he’s described -- but it’s not like he can blame her for that, because it _is_ way more amazing than any other one he’s ever seen on a ship. But surely she trusts him by now to at least keep her safe when possible. Surely she doesn’t think he’s about to lead her into some kind of deadly trap disguised as a bathroom…

“Sure you can,” he cajoles, still considering. Then another thought occurs to him. “I mean, you can just come see the bathroom. You don’t have to, like, get in the tub and try the jets in front of me.” It’s kind of appalling to think she might have thought that was his intention, but it would certainly be a context where her refusal made sense. He drops the hand he’s been offering back to his side. “And hey, we don’t have to hold hands, either. You could just follow me, or you could even lead the way-- “

“No,” she says sharply, cutting him off. She seems more upset rather than less. “I am not going to do that. Any of that. I can’t.”

“Gamora, what are you talking about?” he asks frantically, getting really concerned now. 

“I can’t do this,” she repeats, shoving the hair ornaments into his hands and spinning on her heel to march out the door. 

“Gamora, wait!” He calls. He fumbles with the ornaments, trying to keep them all in hands that are suddenly shaking and hurry after her at the same time. “Hey, talk to me, what’s wrong?” 

She stops right outside the door to their room but only for a brief moment; only long enough to say, her voice as unsteady as his hands, “Please, just leave me alone, Peter.” 

“I--” he starts, but doesn’t finish, and she continues quickly down the hall the way they’d come. 

He wants to protest, to run after her and beg her to tell him what’s going on with her, to please, please don’t make him lose her again. But he knows she wouldn’t be receptive to that right now. When she gets upset like this, chasing after her tends to just make it worse. So with great effort, he stays right where he is. 

Feeling something sharp against his palm, he looks down at his hands and sees the ornaments she’d shoved into them. He loses his breath when he sees that the largest of them has broken in half, either from when she gave them back or when he fumbled with them after. Back in this room for five minutes, where everything has stayed the same for five years, and he’s managed to break one of Gamora’s favorite possessions. 

He curls his fingers around the ornament, ignoring the way the edges poke at his skin, and tries not to take this as a sign.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as usual to everyone who commented on the last chapter!!! <3

As it turns out, time does not make anything clearer. So all those wise sayings are pretty much bullshit.

To be fair, ‘time’ is only a couple of hours, but still. 

When he sees Gamora again, she doesn’t apologize or otherwise explain her reaction. In fact, she doesn’t talk about it at all. Instead, she seems cool and reserved as she asks him for one of the unoccupied rooms on the ship, the aloofness he _knows_ is a facade on full display. Or...at least he _used_ to know it was a facade. Now all bets are off.

He wants to apologize, wants to argue. Wants to convince her to stay in their room anyway, with him, like if he can just get her to agree to that, everything might be all right. Everything might go back to the way it was before -- well, any of this. 

It’s a nice fantasy, but he’s not quite deluded enough to think it’s anything more than that. And he still knows better than to push her when she’s like this, knows it will only make things so much worse. So instead he complies, shows her one of the rooms they’ve made up as guest quarters and does his best to hide the treacherous lump of emotions in his throat. He also decides that _he’s_ sure as hell not sleeping in their room either. Not without her.

When the door is closed in his face, and there’s no sign that she’s going to come out anytime soon, he finally wanders off. He’s aimless, not sure what to do, how to fix whatever this is. He has to do _something_ , though. Not having Gamora near, and not knowing why she’s upset -- besides, you know, that some crazy octopus monster basically tortured her -- is making his palms itch. 

There’s one part of the Quadrant that’s a blessing and also kind of sucks: it’s so large, he can wander the halls for a long time before he runs into anybody else. On the Benatar and the Milano, he can’t walk five feet without bumping into Rocket trying to blow something up or Mantis bouncing from floor to ceiling. Sometimes this space is nice, but times like this, he could do with that kind of distraction. 

Luckily, this time he only has to wander as far as the kitchen before he hears noises. When he pokes his head in, he sees that it’s Drax, sitting at the table and happily munching on a gigantic bowl of some kind of large, green chip that Peter doesn’t recognize. He must have picked it up on their supply run.

“Quill!” Drax greets him with a grin. “Would you like some Guufnower chips?” 

“Um, no thanks,” Peter says. Drax’s taste in chips, and in most food, is pretty gross. He does come all the way into the kitchen, though. 

Drax frowns at him, eating another chip. "Are you sick?"

"No…" He lets the word trail, half a statement and half a question. Not that he really expects Drax to understand the subtlety of that. Then again, he's long since stopped consciously trying to change the way he communicates for Drax, since half the time he isn't paying attention anyway. 

Drax shrugs. "You have lost weight. You are getting even more puny than usual!"

"Hey," Peter snaps, bristling a bit. The last thing he needs right now is a fresh reminder of how much of a mess he's been lately. "Last time we talked, you were basically calling me fat."

"No," Drax corrects. "Last time we talked, we were on the Nova Corps assignment and you said 'stay at that table over there, I don't need you blowing our cover with your literal act.'" He shrugs. "I still do not know what act you meant."

“Yeah, and that’s why I made you stay at the table,” Peter mutters, then sighs. “But that’s not the point.” 

“Ah, right,” Drax says, nodding like he understands, which Peter is willing to bet he does not. “We were speaking of the changes in your appearance, and how terrible you are looking!” 

“No, we were not,” Peter says, trying to head him off before he gains momentum, but it’s futile. 

“Yes, we were,” Drax insists, oblivious as usual. “It is not just your weight, either! You have bags under your eyes that are worse than usual. Your clothing is rumpled and dirty. And you have grown a mustache!” 

“No, I—dude, what?” Peter sputters. He touches his facial hair self-consciously, as if expecting to find it somehow altered from what it had been last time he looked in a mirror. “I’ve had a mustache _literally_ the entire time we’ve known each other.” 

Drax furrows his brow, examining his face closely. “I am certain you did not. I would remember.” 

“Obviously you wouldn’t,” Peter huffs, getting frustrated. “I’ve had it basically since I hit puberty! The only time I haven’t had it is when Rocket shaved it off that time I passed out drunk at that bar on Achernon.” 

Drax frowns deeper, eating another handful of chips. He chews a bit but doesn’t bother to swallow before talking again. “I have no memory of that.”

“What, of my mustache?” asks Peter, not following, and also trying not to look at the chip crumbs that Drax is now sending flying when he speaks. Drax does plenty of un-appetizing things related to food, but talking with his mouth full is pretty close to the top of the list. “We just established that even though you don’t remember it, I’ve always--”

“No!” Drax interrupts. “Rocket shaving your face. That sounds like it would be hilarious!”

Peter sighs. “Well you sure did think it was funny then. You teased me about it, like, at least a dozen times so it’s just peachy that you don’t remember now.”

“Maybe you have a disease of the mind, Quill,” says Drax. “I have heard that some venereal diseases can cause weak races to become delusional.”

“I am not _delusional!_ ” he snaps, throwing up his hands. “And what? _Venereal_ diseases?”

“I know you had the one that made you float for several days,” Drax says, laughing. “It sounded most amusing!”

“That was a long time ago!” Peter protests. “Way before I met Gamora. And it’s dormant, and oh my god, dude, I am _not_ talking about this with you.” 

“Because Gamora is not sleeping with you now?” Drax asks bluntly. Peter doesn’t know what he wants more right now: to punch him or to cry.

“Because I _never_ want to talk about this with you,” he says harshly. “It’s private, man, gees.”

“Finding one who loves you is beautiful,” Drax says, a few more chip crumbs falling from his mouth as he speaks. “It is nothing to keep secret. You should share it with all you can!”

“Yeah, well, some parts of that love are private,” Peter sighs. He rubs his temples. “Besides, she doesn’t...Gamora’s not...she doesn’t love me right now.” Speaking those words feels like a knife stabbing through his throat from the inside. 

“Well, you have not been doing a very good job of re-wooing her,” Drax informs him. 

Peter gapes at him, as Drax calmly continues eating his chips. “I-- _what_? I’m not...I mean…” He trails off, sputtering because he doesn’t quite know how to defend himself...or even if he should.

“You did a very bad job of wooing her in the first place," Drax informs him. "It is a miracle she ever fell for you!” 

He says it brightly, like he’s observing the weather or something. Not like he’s articulating one of Peter’s deepest insecurities, the thing that’s been playing over and over in his head all day. No, more than all day. Much, much more than just today. Maybe it’s not her doubts, her insecurities, stopping her from having the things he’s offering. Maybe Gamora just _doesn’t want them_ because they’re not as great for her as he’s always thought. Because _he’s_ not enough for her, maybe never was. Drax is right: what they had before _was_ a miracle in so many ways. He’s probably a fool to think they’d ever be able to have it again.

“I never tried to _woo_ her,” Peter growls. He turns to the cabinets and starts digging through them, suddenly desperate for something sweet, though his appetite hasn’t really returned. What he _wants_ is his candy stash, but that’s in -- well, _their_ room, if it’s even still there, and it’s five years old if so. 

“Oh,” Drax says, sounding surprised. “I thought that was what all your goofy dancing and singing was about.” 

“It’s not goofy!” Peter says defensively. He slams the cabinet shut, giving up his search as fruitless. “And I--I just loved her and wanted to do that stuff with her. I wasn’t _trying_ to woo her. And I’m not now either!” 

Or maybe he was. He had absolutely no idea what he was doing, having never felt that way about anybody before. All he knew was that he wanted to be with her all the time, and wanted her to love him as much as he loved her, and wanted to spend all the time he could with her and never be apart from her ever. So if that was wooing her...maybe he was. Maybe he _is_.

“Well, good,” Drax says, nodding and still crunching on his chips. “Because you are doing a terrible job if you are. You have not even challenged her to combat yet.”

Peter sighs and plops down at the table across from Drax. “Yeah, and I never will.” Unless she _wanted_ that, of course. He would do anything she wanted. But she never wanted to the first time… 

“Do you not still want to be with Gamora?” Drax asks bluntly. 

“I…” Peter hesitates, even though he knows the answer. He can’t help but picture the Gamora from his dreams, telling him he’s replacing her. But this is still Gamora. And he will always love and want her. “Yeah, of course.” 

“Then be with her,” says Drax, shrugging as he shovels still more chips into his mouth. It seems impossible that there’s anything left in the bowl, but somehow he just keeps eating. Charitably, he holds it out to Peter again, this time close enough for some of the scent to waft up in his face. It smells positively musty and suddenly he’s glad he’s not eating anything of his own.

“Gee thanks,” he mutters, as much to the offer of the chips as to the advice to just _be with_ Gamora. As if it’s up to him alone. As if he has any kind of control over what she wants or how she sees him or what she remembers. 

“You’re welcome,” Drax says charitably, immune to the sarcasm as usual.

Peter groans and drops his head onto his forearms, which rest on the edge of the table. He’s aware that he’s pouting, basically being a petulant child, but at least he doesn’t have to watch Drax talk with his mouth full anymore.

“Are you sure you are not unwell, Quill?” asks Drax, and the next thing Peter knows, there’s a hand pressing into his hair not very gently.

“Hey!” He jumps backward, nearly falls out of his chair. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I am attempting to check you for a fever,” says Drax, like it’s obvious.

“That’s not--you’re supposed to feel my forehead,” Peter says, then instantly regrets it when Drax goes to put his hand on his forehead instead. He bats his hand away. “Dude, I don’t have a fever, I’m _fine_.” 

“Yet you are very irritable today,” Drax points out, munching loudly on another chip. 

“Or maybe you’re very irritating today,” Peter grumps. 

“It is okay,” Drax says, patting him on the shoulder much too hard, like usual. “Wooing can be very stressful when you are bad at it.”

“I’m not--” Peter starts, then stops himself. Why keep insisting he’s not trying to _woo_ Gamora, when it’s clearly not going to get through Drax’s head? And besides, even if maybe wooing isn’t exactly the right word, he _does_ want Gamora to love him again. “Okay, so...say I _was_ trying to woo her. Do you think it would…? God, no, why am I asking you for advice?” Peter shakes his head; he must really be desperate if it even crossed his mind to go to _Drax_ for love advice. 

“My courtship with Hovat was most successful,” Drax says matter-of-factly. 

“That is true,” Peter admits, suddenly feeling a little guilty for his dismissal. Drax _is_ the only member of the team besides him and Gamora who’s been in an actual relationship. 

“I challenged Hovat to ritual combat the moment I knew I wanted her to be mine!” says Drax, getting that familiar dreamy look on his face that always comes with talking about his family. 

Over the years, Peter’s watched him go from raw, bitter, and angry at those memories to a bittersweet sort of fondness. He wonders abruptly whether he’ll ever be able to make a similar sort of transformation, whether he’ll ever be able to think back fondly on the memories of -- his early relationship with Gamora. Just Gamora. Not his, or past, or future, or anything else. Still, whatever words he comes up with in his head, it feels impossible. Maybe he really does have a lot to learn from Drax.

“So...how did that go?” he asks warily. He’s heard many stories about Hovat and Drax’s relationship with her, but he’s tuned them out so often that now he can’t quite remember whether he’s actually heard this particular one before. Fortunately Drax never minds an opportunity to repeat these stories.

“Very well!” Drax booms, grinning now. There are a few bits of chips stuck in his teeth, and Peter resists the urge to look away immediately. “She nearly took off my head!”

“That’s, uh, great?” Peter says, guessing so from Drax’s tone. As much as Peter loves how strong Gamora is, he’s not sure he would consider it romantic if she nearly decapitated him. 

“Yes, it was!” Drax says enthusiastically. “She was a most fierce warrior. The best in our village!” 

Peter swallows, throat suddenly tight as he thinks about his early interactions with Gamora, how she’d insisted she was nothing more than a warrior and an assassin, and thus could have or be nothing else. He imagines that’s how this--how just _Gamora_ \--must be feeling right now, despite proof that she has had and been so much more. 

“I think mine and Gamora’s idea of courtship is different from yours,” Peter points out. 

“Perhaps you are wrong,” Drax says, sounding like he’s positive that he is. “Since it is not working.” 

Peter resists the very strong urge to bang his head against the table in frustration. He forces himself to take a deep breath, reminding himself that he has to be patient with Drax, and says, “That’s because I haven’t been trying...And I don’t know if she’s open to that anyway. She’s barely even talking to me right now.”

“Why?” Drax asks, looking at him with a furrowed brow. “What did you do?” 

“Nothing!” Peter says indignantly. “I didn’t do anything! Except take care of her and show her all the nice stuff we had...have.” 

Drax leans forward, lowering his voice a bit into his version of a whisper, which is anyone else’s version of normal conversational volume. “Do you mean that you showed her your penis?”

“ _What_?” Peter practically shouts, recoiling again, at least as much from Drax’s chip breath as from the words that have just come out of his mouth. “Did I -- _what_ my _what_?”

“Did you show her--” Drax starts, not recognizing that his reaction is incredulity and not hearing difficulty. 

“No!” Peter slams his palm on the table, suddenly desperate to interrupt more than anything else. He does _not_ need to hear that question again. That hurts, though, and he pulls his hand back, shaking it a bit. “No, no, no, no, no. Do not say that again. I heard you, I just -- what the _hell_? _No_ , I didn’t do _that_.”

“Well maybe that is your problem,” says Drax. “She must have liked it before.”

“Oh my god.” Peter runs his hands through his hair, practically tearing at it. “Oh my god, I cannot believe we’re -- I showed her her knives. You know, her collection? She fucking _loves_ those, man, but this time it just freaked her out.” He’s pretty sure she _would_ have decapitated him if he’d tried anything involving his genitals, not that he would have.

“Did she try to make you battle her with them?” Drax asks eagerly. Peter says nothing, simply glares at him until he wilts. “Right. You do not woo through combat.” He shakes his head with great disappointment, as though Peter has let him down. “Dancing and music are not a good courtship method.” 

“That’s a lot of what we did the first time,” Peter says, defensive and grumpy for all of two seconds before he perks up, brightening instantly when the proverbial light bulb goes off above his head. “That’s it! Music! Music will help her get her memories back!”

“Her memories?” Drax asks, perplexed. 

“Uh…” Peter hesitates, regretting his lapse of filter. As far as he knows, Gamora hasn’t told anybody else -- except probably Nebula -- about regaining that memory, and he highly doubts she would want him spreading that information around. Thinking fast, he says, “Well, this is the same Gamora as--the one we knew before, right?”

“Who else would she be?” Drax says easily. He has, after all, never thought of her any differently. 

“Right,” Peter says. “So, maybe she’s got the memories from her...past...self buried in her mind somewhere.” She _must_ , he thinks, if she somehow has the memories of her death and his own failure. He doesn’t understand _how_ but she does, so the other ones must be there too. “And music was a part of so many of our memories. So that’s the way to get them back!” 

Drax scratches his head. “Why do you need her to get them back?”

Peter blinks at him, considering how to make this clear to him. Drax knows that Gamora doesn’t remember the team, or her life as a Guardian, or Peter’s relationship with her. He has to know that, or he wouldn’t be talking about re-wooing her, right? But then why is it difficult for him to understand why it’s important for Gamora to remember? Even if he isn’t aware that it’s possible for her to get her memories back, he ought to empathize with the motivation behind it. 

“Why do I need--” He breaks off, runs a hand through his hair again. His head is starting to pound. “Why would I _not_ want her to get her memories back? Why would I not want her to love me again? We just established that I wanna be with her.”

“Right,” says Drax. “But why does she need her memories for that?”

Peter sighs. “So she can remember that she loves me?” 

“She is Gamora,” says Drax, like he’s stating another very obvious fact. “Of course she loves you.” He pauses then, seeming to consider something else. “Well, maybe not if you keep insisting on dancing. I have told you before, Quill. Gamora is _not_ a dancer.”

“She literally--” Peter starts, then once again stops himself, reminding himself that it’s pointless to argue with Drax about things like this. “Whatever, dude. I know what I have to do now. Thanks for unintentionally helping me out.” 

“I was intentionally helping!” Drax protests.

Peter sighs. He really was, wasn’t he? He generally does, despite the fact that he usually does not actually help. “Okay, well, thanks for helping. And...thanks for being a good friend. To me and Gamora.” He stands up and reaches across the table to pat Drax on the shoulder. 

“Anytime, my friend!” Drax says genuinely, then pats him on the arm. 

“Enjoy your chips,” Peter says as he heads out of the room, trying to subtly rub his arm where Drax practically slapped it. 

“Enjoy your re-wooing!” Drax calls after him. “However you said you were going to do it. I was not listening.” 

Peter shakes his head and continues down the hall, head already reeling with all the possibilities of songs he’s going to show Gamora. Music has always been important, but perhaps never more so than it is right now.

* * *

Nebula is in pieces. 

Gamora has seen her sister like this before, of course. 

Well...perhaps not quite this...dismembered. Not to the point where it looks almost impossible that she might still be alive, might ever be able to be put back together into a being that is anything resembling whole. Still, she has seen her sister in surgery, in modification, and just plain being punished by Thanos many times before. 

Never has she felt this sort of sick horror about it, though, her stomach dropping and roiling with a sick devastation as soon as she sees her. 

For one horrible moment, she’s certain that Nebula is dead, that Thanos is showing her the latest murder he has already committed. She takes a couple of steps forward, reaches out and doesn’t quite touch any of Nebula’s parts where they are suspended in the air. An instant later her attention is drawn by the barest flick of an eyelid, and she realizes that her sister is not only alive but _still conscious_ in what must be both painful and humiliating circumstances.

“Don’t do this,” she hears herself say, but already knows instinctively that it’s futile. This is her fault, she’s sure, though she doesn’t remember exactly how, has only the deep horrifying certainty that it’s true.

She wants to stop this, to protest more, to beg, to do anything, but she feels powerless to even continue breathing. Thanos is directly behind her, she knows, though she doesn’t turn to look, and she knows it’s his doing when Nebula is suddenly rent even farther apart. 

Thanos asks her a question, but it sounds distorted; all she can focus on is Nebula, who is screaming in agony. Gamora’s dimly aware that she’s crying, wonders if Thanos is _amused_ by this. 

She can stop this, Gamora thinks. She doesn’t know how but she _can_ ; she is equally certain, though, that it would make things so much worse if she did. But this is her sister, and she’s in so much pain, and she was supposed to be free from Thanos, they all were--

She wakes with a gasp; shivering, sweating, panting. She lies in bed with her eyes open, trying to catch her breath, to calm her racing heart. It was just a dream...but it felt so real. She shivers, doesn’t know whether she’s hot or cold.

If only Peter were here, she thinks, then curses herself for that kind of weak thought. But she can’t stop the desire. She wishes for comfort, for what he’d told her that he used to do with her after she had a nightmare. She wants hot chocolate and a pillow fort and to be _held_. 

She doesn't _want_ to want any of those things. They are completely ridiculous. She's lived her entire remembered life without them, and she does not need them now. It would be beyond foolish to start. Not to mention dangerous and unfair to start giving Peter any ideas about those sorts of things. The last thing she wants is to lead him on, to give him false hope about what she -- what they -- could be. 

Still, she can't help thinking of the big beautiful quarters he'd shown her, not just of the knife collection but also the bed and the many pillows and the subtly fragrant candles she'd glimpsed. It's easy to see how it would be comforting to be in there now, with him, and to--

"No," she snaps at herself, kicking the thin sheets viciously off the guest bed she's been occupying and sitting up so quickly it takes her head a moment to equalize. She is not going to go there. She doesn't know where Peter is on this ship, and she wouldn't seek him out now even if she did. 

Nebula, though...Nebula is who she needs to talk to, she decides. She’s the one who can help her make sense of the dream. 

The only problem with that is that she is not exactly sure where Nebula’s room is on this ship. Peter never finished his tour of the Quadrant, not that she gave him the opportunity. But she knows a lot of places where it _isn’t_ , so that’s at least a place to start. And wandering around the ship is still better than lying here with nothing but the image of Nebula being torn apart and her annoying thoughts about Peter to keep her company. 

The sleeping quarters on this ship are fairly spread out, she’d gathered from Peter’s aborted tour. The only other quarters she has any idea of the location of are Rocket’s, because Peter had vaguely gestured down a hallway as they exited the hangar and said that’s where it was. Figuring that’s as good a place to start as any, she heads in that direction. 

That takes her back past the area Peter had told her was for target practice, and she stops there for a moment, looking in more detail. It isn’t so much that she’s missed characteristics of the room -- it’s not like it possesses very many distinctive features. But she does find herself trying to imagine what it would be like to be here. 

No, not just _be_ here. She is perfectly capable of existing here innocuously, doing nothing more than looking around on high alert. What she’s trying to imagine is _belonging_ here. That was what Peter had been asking earlier too, she knows. He’d been probing for any hint that she’d remembered a time when this place, these activities, had been a part of her home. When she’d been not only able to but glad to stand here beside her friends and practice with weapons, with no concern of them gauging her technique for flaws, or turning on her outright during the session. 

It feels utterly foreign to her, the idea as strange as it had felt to be in space for the first time as a child. The quarters he’d shown her with the big bed and all of the pretty, personal things, feel exactly the same way. She cannot even begin to imagine what it would feel like for these things to be hers. But she is starting to want to.

She continues down the hall and past the hangar, the last place on this ship she knows the location of. Apparently, there was a time she knew this ship and these halls like her home. She wonders if there will ever be a time when that is true again. The only ship she has ever known that well before was Sanctuary, and that was not a real home, no matter what Thanos insists...Insisted. 

Here, though, the Quadrant… It may not be very beautiful, or elegant, or even much lighter than Sanctuary, but there are touches of home everywhere she turns. Even just in the halls, there are signs of living, that this space functions as more than a base, but as a home for a team...For a family. 

In one hall, there are mechanical bits like screws and pieces of machinery lying around, presumably from Rocket’s tinkering. In another, there’s a stray shoe that probably belongs to Mantis; in the short weeks she’s known her -- has remembered knowing her -- Gamora has seen her looking for shoes she left somewhere seven times. She never seems worried, though; she appears to lose track of them a lot. 

Down another hall, there’s a single glove lying in the sill of a port window. On inspection, Gamora sees that it’s fingerless, and has the strong suspicion that it belongs to Peter. No, she _knows_ somehow that it belongs to Peter. It’s just that it would really fit his style, she’s sure…Not that she has some sense of what belongs to him, or that she can catch the vague scent of him on it. 

She is going to keep searching, she tells herself. The entire point of getting out of bed was not to find Peter or stand around mooning over him like some idiotic starry-eyed waif who falls for his kind of -- No. That was not the point. The point was to find Nebula, to make sure she is all right. To get the truth about that dream and whether those horrifying events ever actually occurred.

And if they did? Well...if they did, then she thinks she will owe her sister an apology. _More_ of an apology. She already owes so many that it feels as though it will take more than a lifetime to truly make amends. She is also already certain of what Nebula will say, that those things _were_ real, that--

Gamora pauses in that torturous rumination, realizes suddenly that her hand has moved seemingly of its own volition to pick up the glove, so now she’s holding it. She glares, feeling betrayed by her own subconscious. How dare it distract her with thoughts of Nebula only to then do this? Worse still, she finds herself slipping it on, noticing how big it is on her, how her fingers barely poke out through the holes, how that means that if she were to hold hands with Peter--

“Stupid,” she snaps at herself. She pulls off the glove and tosses it violently back onto the windowsill. “ _Stupid._ What the hell is the point of a glove that doesn’t have any fingers?” 

“I am Groot?” comes a tentative voice from behind her, causing her to whip around and nearly draw her sword before it registers that the voice isn’t a threat. 

There’s an archway just behind her that she had noticed before, but she’d been so preoccupied with Peter’s dumb glove that there are a lot of things she _didn’t_ notice about it. It’s a sitting area, which, like the rest of the ship, is not exactly elegant, but homey and warm. There’s some small, mismatched tables, a large holo screen, some comfortable-looking chairs, a large, rundown couch, and an adolescent tree, peering at her from over top of it. 

She blushes, feeling stupid both because somebody heard her speaking to a glove, and also because she’d failed to notice Groot before. She’s already feeling too comfortable in this environment if she failed to do a complete scan of her surroundings, allowed herself to be distracted enough to not realize a presence right behind her. 

“Um--sorry,” she says. She’s not exactly sure what he asked, but she can hear the curiosity in his tone, can guess that he’s probably wondering why she’s so angry at a stray glove. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” 

“I am Groot,” he says with a shrug, then sinks back down on the couch so she can no longer see him. That was a dismissal, she realizes, but something else she just noticed keeps her rooted in place: Groot had seemed as embarrassed as she was. And if she’s not mistaken, those were tear tracks on his barky cheeks. 

She takes a few tentative steps closer, careful not to make too much noise. Her heart is beating hard, but she doesn’t think that Groot can hear it. It would be easy enough to let Groot dismiss her, to just move on and continue looking for Nebula. He would probably let her. In fact, based on the embarrassment she saw on his face, he might even prefer it. It would probably be easier for both of them.

But...she can’t. Groot is a child. Further along in his development than she was when she was taken from her parents, when they were murdered by Thanos, but she hasn’t forgotten for one instant of her life the agony of how that felt. Is that how Groot feels now? Is that why he’s crying? And if it is, can she do anything at all besides make it worse?

He’s lying face down on the couch when she gets close enough to see. And -- yes, she thinks, his shoulders appear to be shaking with silent sobs. It reminds her of the movements she’s seen from Peter so often over the past few weeks, and the helpless feeling that comes with it. She _wants_ to comfort him, though.

“Groot?” she says quietly.

He turns his head with a sort of hiccup-y gasp; apparently he had been expecting her to take the dismissal and leave. He glares at her but it looks extremely weak, more vulnerable than anything, with the tears shimmering in his eyes. “I am _Groot_.” Then he turns his head again to bury it in a couch cushion. 

She understands the gist of what he’s said; he is unhappy, obviously, and she believes his tone was sarcastic. Probably something like _obviously_. She doesn’t know exactly what he said but she’s surprised by how much she did understand, given that she does not have--or has no memory of--the ability to speak Groot. She hasn’t spoken to him much these past few weeks, as he’s never seemed to want to. She’s certainly heard him speak, though, and Peter told her that’s how they all learned to understand him. None of them learned formally, but merely picked it up, learned the meanings of his inflections, tone, and expressions just from being around him. 

He’d also said she was the first to learn to understand him, aside from Rocket. 

She doesn’t need to fully understand him right now to know that he’s in pain, and that she is the cause of it. She has been the cause of so much pain in her life; perhaps now she can try to alleviate at least some of that. 

So she sits on the couch in the narrow space left by Groot’s legs. “I’m here, if you’d like to...talk.” 

Groot scoffs into the couch. There are no actual words this time, but the intention is clearer than ever. He doubts her ability to be helpful if he does talk, which makes him not want to talk. 

She can’t blame him, really. She doubts her ability too. This is so foreign to her, so different from any of her training, and she doesn’t even speak his language. 

But still, she feels the same pull to help him that she did with Peter. She cannot just leave him here like this, a crying child alone in the night. A child who is probably crying _because_ of her. And surely she must have felt this same way before, right? Well, maybe not the _because of her_ part, but the uncertain, inexperienced part. She must have felt that way when he was a baby and she was...well, about equally new at this whole free-from-Thanos existence. It isn’t like she’d had any more experience with children then. But somehow she’d figured it out. So it stands to reason that she can figure it out again, impossible though it may feel. 

“I know I am not -- her,” she offers. “I am not trying to be _her._ But I -- am here.”

Groot turns his head again, just enough for him to glance sidelong at her and for his voice to not be completely muffled when he says, “I am Groot?” 

Again, she cannot understand exactly what he’s said, or in fact even translate any of it into words in her own language. But she gets the gist, almost like some sort of intuitive voice inside of her that tells her he means to ask: _You are not?_

The question surprises her, though it probably shouldn’t. It’s not as though he is saying he thinks that she is; after all, he and Rocket have both been acting as though she is at best a stranger, at worst an interloper, though Groot has not been nearly as bad lately. Still, she knows he’s been thinking of her as different from the Gamora he knew and loved. 

But perhaps, like Peter, he is feeling conflicted about how he should view her and treat her, whether it would be a betrayal to his Gamora to see her as the same person. This is confusing for all of them; it must be especially so to an adolescent. 

“Well, not completely, anyway,” she allows. Then she decides that if that _is_ how Groot is feeling right now, she should let him know that he is not alone.“Though I have been...conflicted about that too.” 

“I am Groot,” he says dismissively, turning his face back into the couch cushions again. This one amounts to _I don’t care_ , she thinks. That’s plain enough even if she understood nothing of the language, only the barest minimum of the inflection. His body language practically screams it.

Gamora sighs. Apparently that guess was wrong. Or...if not then perhaps she has gone about it in the wrong way. Peter might be conflicted, but at least he’s fairly open and honest about his emotions. To a fault, sometimes. When he’s angry or resentful, she knows it. When he’s sad, he cries. When he’s--

Out of nowhere comes Nebula’s voice, unbidden. _That not-quite-a-moron loves you._ Is that how he’s been acting, she wonders? As though he loves her? He hasn’t tried to kiss her or touch her out of turn. He hasn’t made any kind of romantic advances, really. But is that just because he knew they would be unwelcome? She thinks of the way he’d touched her hair -- skillfully, reverently. _Perfectly_ for her tradition and preferences. She thinks of the way he’d kissed her forehead too, and--

She jumps abruptly as Groot snakes out a vine, poking her in the hip.

He’s still got his face mostly buried in the cushion, but it’s turned just enough for him to look at her out of the corner of his eye. There’s curiosity in his gaze even though he doesn’t say anything. She feels a blush rise to her cheeks at the direction her thoughts turned, though she knows Groot couldn’t know that she’d been thinking about Peter. Damn that man for invading her thoughts even now; she wishes she could throw another of his gloves in frustration. Preferably at his stupid face that won’t leave her mind.

Groot still isn’t saying anything, but he’s also still watching her in what she imagines he thinks is a subtle way. She thinks again of Nebula, only this time something she’d said about _herself_ ; how when she’d acted like she hated Gamora for most of their lives, it was not because she really did, but because she loved her and was angry about it, only _wished_ that she could hate her. She thinks of how often Nebula would act like she wanted nothing to do with her, only to seek her attention in some way or another. Not that she’d recognized the motivation for that at the time.

But now… She almost smiles. She wonders how Nebula would feel at being compared to an adolescent. 

“I like this room,” Gamora says softly, deciding that direct questioning isn’t working. 

Groot looks at her more fully, curiosity more pronounced when he says, “I am Groot?” which she takes to mean _Why?_

“It’s small but warm,” she says. “It feels like a room in a home.”

Groot rolls his eyes. “I am Groot.”

“Well yes,” says Gamora, responding before she’s even thought about it, before she’s had a chance to consciously consider whether she’s properly understood him. Or how she’s been _able_ to properly understand him. “I know this is your home, but--”

“I am _Groot,_ ” he interrupts, apparently no qualms about taking his turn in conversations. Well, that probably shouldn’t be a surprise, given that he’s an adolescent and she’s seen who his role models are. Still, she’s surprised by the gist of what he’s saying and now she _does_ pause to question herself. 

Then again, it would probably be far more productive to question him. “It is _our_ home? Mine too?”

Instead of repeating himself he shrugs, this time with an aloofness that’s _so_ very like Nebula that she nearly laughs. It’s probably best that she doesn’t, though. He hasn’t contradicted her, so that seems to be the important part.

“Well,” she continues, “I had a home before that did not feel like one. On Thanos’s ship.” She’s pretty sure he knows this, but as she’d said to Peter, _she_ hasn’t told him before, so she keeps going anyway. “It was very dark and very cold. So I like that this room is the opposite.”

Groot turns yet again so that he’s now curled on his side, so abrupt a change that it surprises her, though she tries not to show it. He’s facing the holo screen and not quite looking at her, but this is more open that he’s been so far, despite the fact that he’s curled in on himself to such a degree that it makes him appear much smaller than he actually is. 

“I am Groot,” he says quietly. He’s tracing little patterns onto the couch cushion in front of him, watching his finger idly. Gamora is pretty sure he just voiced agreement with her, another thing that surprises her. Then, before she can figure out how to respond, he adds, “I am Groot.” 

“Oh,” she says softly. Again, though she’s not one hundred percent sure she actually understood him, she thinks he just said: _So did you_ , meaning the other her. Past her. Though he may or may not have actually made that distinction. 

“Did we spend time in here together?” she ventures tentatively. He nods, a fresh tear slipping down his cheek. She pretends not to notice as he quickly wipes it away. “Is that why you are in here now?” 

“I am Groot,” he says, his tone definitely petulant. She is pretty positive that was an _I don’t know_ that actually means _yes_. She may have more trouble translating him due to his age rather than his language, were it not for the fact that his way of speaking continues to remind her quite a bit of Nebula when she gets particularly dramatic. 

"Oh okay," says Gamora. "You were definitely not in here because you were thinking of me. Any version of me. At all. You just happened to be in here for completely unrelated reasons." Just like how she is definitely not thinking about Peter, and definitely didn't happen to pick up his glove for any subconscious reasons. Okay, so maybe she has more in common with Nebula than she's willing to admit most of the time. 

Groot shakes his head. "I am Groot!"

It's clearly a protest, but she's pretty sure she didn't actually misinterpret what he'd said or make a mistake in her approach to responding. It's more that she's right and her gentle ribbing has had exactly the desired effect. So she decides to continue playing along. "Oh, I'm sorry, you _didn't_ mean to say no? Well, my mistake, you know I am still learning your language."

He looks wary now. "I am Groot."

Gamora offers him a gentle smile. "I understand. You didn't say yes either. But...maybe you could tell me more about what we used to do in here?"

“I am Groot,” he mutters, flicking his finger against the couch cushion moodily. 

“You don’t know?” Gamora asks, a little amused. “Or you don’t know if you want to tell me?”

He throws her a pouty look and she has to press her lips together to keep from laughing. Her heart goes out to him, really it does; she knows that he is going through a difficult time and she sympathizes. But he looks downright _adorable_. She can see why she was apparently so fond of him. 

“I am _Groot_ ,” he repeats.

“You don’t know that either?” she asks. He shrugs and she nearly sighs at how quickly his stubbornness has gone from cute to frustrating. She wants to help him but how can she when he won’t give her any clues as to how? Did her past-future self just magically know what to do with a moody, dramatic adolescent? Or did she simply gain the skills through knowing him for his entire life? And either way, how is she supposed to know what to do now?

Casting her eyes around the room, she can see no hint of activities they might have done aside from the holo screen… And Groot’s handheld video game console laying on the table in front of the couch. 

“Did we play video games?” she guesses. 

He shrugs again, but says, “I am Groot,” which she takes to mean _sometimes_. Or _maybe_. Either way, that is better than _I don’t know_. 

“I like video games,” she offers, still a bit cautious. She remembers how distraught he’d been on Liri IV when his handheld game had been taken by the monkey creatures. It’s obviously a prized possession of his. When he’s playing it, she sees a certain kind of calm contentment wash over his face. Every time she’s seen it, it’s struck her as oddly familiar, as something she knows, and all at once the pieces fall into place: He looks the same way Peter does when _he’s_ listening to his music. Peter must have taught Groot this sort of appreciation for an escape, then, she thinks. 

“I am Groot,” he says a bit resignedly. At first she thinks he is expressing disapproval of the fact that they have a shared interest, but then she realizes that that’s not it. He’s acknowledging that he knows her preferences, because of his relationship with her before, only now that awareness makes him sad.

“I am still learning about them, though,” says Gamora. She glances over at the holo screen, then back at him. “Could you show me one of the ones we enjoyed playing here?”

“I am Groot?” he says, voice so tentative and unsure that it makes her heart ache. 

“Of course I really want to,” she says gently. “I would not have asked if I didn’t. As long as you want to.”

“I am Groot,” he says, still unsure. But he slowly sits up, wiping at his face with the backs of his hands in what he probably thinks is a subtle manner. She’s seen Peter do the same thing and that stabby feeling hits her chest again. Now that she’s looking, she sees so much of Peter in him, though she’d seen mostly Nebula before. She wonders if there are aspects of herself in him too…

“Whichever game you want,” she says. She is fairly certain that’s what he just asked, though his voice is a little garbled, so that makes it difficult. 

He doesn’t correct her, so she takes that as confirmation. Instead, he just grabs the control for the holo and turns it on, fingers moving over it quickly, with the ease of familiarity, to get to the screen that displays all the available games. 

“I am Groot?” he says, hovering over the racing game Peter had shown her before. 

“Oh, yes,” she says, thinking her knowledge of the game will make Groot happy. “I played that with Peter.”

But rather than seem pleased, he makes a grunty sort of noise and moves onto other options. He doesn’t appear angry, really, or sad, just...determined. She’s not sure why, when it’s not as though she will have the memory of playing _any_ of these games with _him_ , no matter whether she’s played them with somebody else. But perhaps he wants to be able to show her something completely new to her. 

“I am Groot?” he asks, hovering over another game. This one shows what appears to be an animated series of towers, poorly constructed so that they sway precariously in an unseen wind. At the top of each tower is a cartoon Orloni, sneering and spitting in a way that’s clearly intended to be insulting, though she’s fairly certain in real life they lack the awareness to do something so sophisticated. In front of the game course is a picture of what appears to be an animated fuzz ball with comically small wings and big eyes. It looks nothing like any living creature she’s ever seen, but that appears not to matter. This game is obviously fictional.

“Sure,” she agrees easily, trusting him to have good taste in games. Or...at least _as_ good taste in games as any of them might have. She’s enjoyed both of the ones she’s learned so far, silly though they might seem in comparison to the training simulations she’s known up until now. “I have not played that one before.” 

Groot selects the game and it loads quickly, a course similar to the one on the thumbnail stretching out three-dimensionally now. There are more towers and more Orloni. There’s also a catapult with the fuzz ball character loaded inside it. 

Then he presses something else and their game controls appear in front of them. It’s simply a joystick with no buttons, and Gamora is even more perplexed about this game than before.

“What is the objective of this game?” she asks, taking in the Orloni on top of the first tower, which is sticking its tongue out at the fuzzy creature in the catapult on the ground below. 

“I am Groot,” he explains, which sounds to her like _kill the towers_. 

“Can you repeat that?” she asks, thinking that can’t possibly be right. Why would they want to kill towers. 

Groot repeats himself, a little slower, more patiently than she’d have expected, and this time it makes more sense: _Destroy the towers_. 

“In order to also destroy the Orloni?” she guesses. Groot nods, a little savagely, and she cannot help but grin. “They are quite annoying creatures.”

“I am Groot,” he says in agreement. Then he pulls his joystick back, and she watches as a dotted-line trajectory appears on the screen. When he releases the joystick, the fuzzball is launched across the sky and into the tower. The extremely poorly-constructed tower is knocked to pieces and it, along with the Orloni, fall to the ground. 

She blinks, not quite seeing the point. But she enjoys the grin on Groot’s face when the cursing Orloni falls out of view of the screen. “How do you win?” she asks. 

“I am Groot,” he repeats, the same meaning as before: _destroy the towers._ But then he adds, with another somewhat savage grin, “I am _Groot._ ” Kill the Orloni too, then. 

“All right,” says Gamora, still not entirely sure she follows. 

It’s clear to her that the fuzz balls are intended to be used as some sort of living ammunition, and that knocking the Orloni out off their towers seems to kill them without any kind of effort to fight them on the ground. Which is probably a good thing, because she can’t see how the fuzz ball characters are supposed to have any sort of tactical abilities. In fact, she’s pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to fly or walk without the aid of the catapult launching them into the air. 

Still, she doesn’t understand how to win. There’s what appears to be a point counter at the top of the display, but...only one. 

“Are we each trying to destroy more of them?” she asks, looking again to see whether there’s a point counter for her. Maybe it will appear after she makes her first move?

“I am Groot,” he says, with a self-satisfied smirk, and suddenly she understands: there will not be a winner between them, because they are a team. The point of the game is to pit both of them against the Orloni, rather than against one another. She wonders for a moment whether he’s chosen this game for that exact reason, because he knows her competitive streak. Or is it just that he wants to have her on his side right now? Either way it’s brilliant, and she feels any remaining awkwardness between them melt away, at least for the duration of this game.

“All right,” says Gamora, priming her own catapult. “Let’s kick some Orloni ass.”


	17. Chapter 17

Peter doesn’t think Gamora is avoiding him. After all, it’s only been half a day that he hasn’t seen her, and though that was kind of unusual back when they were sharing a room, now, well… Now he’d hardly gotten any sleep the night before because sleeping without her _sucks_. But he still feels better than he has in a while. After all, now he’s got a plan! A plan that requires Gamora to be within hearing range.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t been all day. Though she may not be avoiding him, she’s definitely not seeking him out either, so he doesn’t want to seek _her_ out either. So, step one of his brilliant plan is to just casually run into her, something that would be a lot easier on the Benatar, where it was nearly impossible _not_ to run into someone. But they’re on the Quadrant now, which has about a billion rooms in it. If she did want to avoid him, she could do it super easily here. He and Rocket had once avoided each other for three weeks on this ship when they were especially pissed off, until Gamora had marched him by the ear to Rocket’s workshop to force them to “stop acting like children.” 

That thought makes his heart ache a bit, but he quickly cheers himself with his Plan. What happened the other day with the Sons proves that Gamora _can_ get back everything Thanos tried to take away. At least, he’s pretty sure -- the memories are _there_. Even if he doesn’t know how or why, that doesn’t matter right now. All he has to do is bring them out, in a much more pleasant way than that evil octopus had. And, okay, he’ll also need to help her get comfortable with allowing herself to have those nice things she’ll be remembering soon. But he can do that too. He did it in the first place.

Even more unfortunately, though, the size of the Quadrant is not the only problem when it comes to casually _running into_ Gamora. First of all, he has no idea where she’d want to go, because she doesn’t remember any of her routines or preferences. Not only that, but he never got to finish his tour of the ship, so he doesn’t even know where all she _knows_ how to get to. He hopes she isn’t hopelessly lost somewhere. That had happened to Mantis early on, and it was definitely not pleasant. 

That dilemma keeps him stumped for a minute. Well, okay, maybe more like five minutes. But then a brilliant idea occurs to him: maybe, just maybe, Gamora _does_ remember some of her routines. Maybe, on some instinctive level, some subconscious part of her remembers the Quadrant and the things she used to do on it. After all, he’s seen her do other things she’s claimed not to be familiar with, like fighting alongside the team. Clearly he’s going to have to test this hypothesis. 

She used to love the ship’s large gym, used to work out pretty much every day, so he figures that’s a good first place to check. He hears noises as he approaches it, but when he turns the corner and pokes his head just a little bit around the archway that leads into it, he sees only Nebula, whaling on a punching bag. 

“What do you want, Quill?” she asks, not pausing her assault. Apparently his reconnaissance technique wasn’t as subtle as he’d thought. 

Nebula doesn’t appear any angrier than her usual, though, so he feels safe coming fully into the entryway. “Was Gamora in here with you before?” he asks. 

“No,” she says simply. 

“Oh,” he says. That’s not ideal, but hey, was he really expecting to find her the first place he looked? He knows he’s gonna have to try harder than that. 

“Are you expecting my answer to change if you just stand there like an idiot?” Nebula asks, still continuing her punching. 

Peter rolls his eyes. “I was just thinking, yeesh.” 

He turns around and leaves, though not before he hears Nebula say, “That’s a first.” 

Next, he tries the large common area where they all tend to gather in the evenings or before jobs. There’s a chair in there that she’s particularly fond of, no matter how she pretends to not have a preference. But when he--totally subtly--peeks around the corner into that room, he only sees Drax and Mantis, sitting on the couch, eating some kind of sludge out of bowls while they watch a cartoon on the holo. 

He’s about to turn around and leave again, fairly certain that they’re less perceptive than Nebula and won’t have heard him snooping. But he realizes about two seconds too late that Groot and his teenaged mess have already been here. There’s a discarded vine on the floor in the doorway, and he manages to step on it in just exactly the right way for it to flip over and get tangled around his ankle. That makes him jump, which then makes him stumble. He doesn’t quite go down, but the movement involves quite a bit of less-than-graceful shuffling and grabbing at the door frame, and he curses under his breath.

“Quill!” comes Drax’s booming voice. He’s turned around to look over the couch, of course, because somehow for all his obliviousness, he always manages to be paying attention when something embarrassing or inconvenient happens. “Be careful, there is a vine on the floor!”

Peter sighs, kicking at the vine to send it flying away from him. “So you knew it was there and you didn’t think to, I dunno, move it so nobody tripped?”

Drax shrugs. “I knew it was there. I would not trip over such a pathetic obstacle.”

“Oh, but you think I would?” He just _did_ , of course, but that isn’t the point.

“No!” says Drax, regardless. “Because I warned you first.” Then he brightens. “How is the wooing?”

“Wooing?” Mantis asks, looking excited. Her antennae stand straight up and she practically bounces up on the couch, sloshing some of whatever the hell is in her bowl. It looks like a blue chili that Peter wants nothing to do with; Mantis is the only one of them who can stomach Drax’s creations most of the time. “What is wooing?”

“Peter is courting Gamora!” Drax declares before he can get a word in edgewise. “But he has been doing terribly!”

“But you already did that,” Mantis tells Peter, head tilted in confusion. Her antennae flop over almost like a dog’s ears. 

“Yeah, but she doesn’t--” Peter starts, then nearly slaps himself on the head. “No, no, I’m not _wooing_... Look, just, coincidentally--not because I’m trying to woo anybody--have either of you seen Gamora?”

“Yes,” Drax says, then takes another bite of his blue sludge.

Peter waits to see if he’ll elaborate, if he simply wanted to have his mouth full before he started talking. But when he doesn’t, Peter prompts, “Where?”

“I saw her on the Benatar yesterday morning!” Drax says. “And fighting the Sons before that, and--”

“Oh my god, _today_ ,” Peter interrupts, before Drax can launch into a description of every time he’s ever seen Gamora. 

“You did not specify that,” Drax says with a shrug. 

“I have not seen her today,” Mantis informs him. Peter is grateful she decided to take pity on him, because he was about three seconds away from hurling this vine at Drax’s head. 

“Thank you, _Mantis_ ,” Peter says pointedly, before stalking off. 

“You are welcome!” Drax booms after him. 

Peter sighs, unsure of where to go next. He lets his legs carry him somewhat aimlessly, somewhat by instinct, only half seeing the ship as he goes. Mainly he’s still seething at Drax, and at Groot, for making a mess so soon after being back on the ship. What if Gamora had been the one who’d tripped on that vine? What would that make her think of their home? Then again, Gamora is far too graceful to ever do something so dumb. 

By the time he’s finished that line of thinking, his feet have brought him to _their_ room. He’s standing outside the door, and he looks down at his boots, irritated.

“Hey,” he mutters to them. “She’s not in there. You were supposed to come up with, like, some kinda brilliant answer that was buried in my subconscious.” As if. His body’s as likely to betray and embarrass him as Rocket is these days. 

Still, he’s standing here, so...might as well go in and just make sure. These doors are still coded to her biometrics, after all, and it _is_ one of the only places he got to actually show her on his tour. Wouldn’t it be ironic if she’d been in here all along?

She’s not, of course. He’s disappointed in himself _for_ being disappointed that she’s not. Though he’d known she wouldn’t be in here, he’d sort of gotten his hopes up anyway. 

He tells himself to just back away and close the door, since he’s now seen that she’s not here. But he can’t stop himself from taking a step in and looking around. He’d just seen this room when he’d shown Gamora, but being in here without her feels wrong. Like he’s seeing ghosts everywhere. Which is stupid; it’s still their room, still their home. Both he and Gamora are going to feel a lot better once she remembers that. 

The broken hair ornament is sitting on the nightstand where he’d left it, and a lump rises in his throat. He’d been too ashamed to try to fix it, and even now looking at it makes his heart pound and his eyes sting. 

He’s got to get out of here before he does something dumb, like cry. He finally manages to drag himself away and continue down the hall towards the target practice room, one of the other places he’d been able to show her on the tour. He perks up when he hears noises coming from inside, but when he looks, it’s only Kraglin, fin alight as he weaves the arrow through paper targets. He’s not as good as Yondu was, but he’s gotten a lot better.

“Hey, Pete!” Kraglin calls when he sees him. The arrow clatters to the ground when he stops whistling and waves enthusiastically. 

Peter musters the biggest smile he can and waves back, stepping further into the room. He feels bad for not being more excited to see Kraglin, considering yesterday was the first time he’d seen him in -- well, five years, though it doesn’t feel that way to Peter. 

“Hey,” Peter echoes. He looks down at the arrow and waits for Kraglin to pick it up and sheathe it, fin going dark. It’s been a while -- at least, as far as he knows -- since Kraglin skewered someone with the thing accidentally, but he’s not taking any chances. Particularly not knowing that he’s been alone on this ship for most of the past few years. 

“How’s it goin’?” asks Kraglin, looking him up and down. He’s aiming for that same casual tone that Peter is, neither of them really quite succeeding. 

“Fine!” Peter stuffs his hands into his pockets, one off them brushing against the holo he just picked up. They have a lot to talk about, he knows, not the least of which is the fact that as far as Kraglin’s concerned, he’s been dead this whole time. The Ravagers didn’t exactly raise either of them to have that kind of conversation, though, so instead Peter decides denial is the way to keep going. “Totally cool, totally fine. You?”

“Pretty fine,” Kraglin answers, still looking at Peter like he expects him to disappear again at any minute.

“All right, good talk,” says Peter, deciding it _is_ time to disappear again, at least in a manner of speaking. He’s still too focused on Gamora to talk things out with Kraglin right now. He gives a little wave and backs toward the door again, then stops on a whim just before he reaches the hallway. “Hey. You seen Gamora?”

“Oh yeah!” he answers, grinning. “Came by a few minutes ago, wanted to know where we kept the rations. I pointed her in that direction, hope that was okay.”

“Yeah, of course,” Peter says, suddenly eager to run to the kitchen. “Of course it’s okay, it’s not like she’s...This is still her home.” He swallows, his excitement dampened a bit when he thinks that _she_ might not think of it that way, though it is. 

“Yeah, I know,” Kraglin says quickly. Then, almost as if reading his thoughts, says, “I’m not sure she knows that, though.”

Peter sighs. Kraglin doesn’t even know the half of it. Peter knows that Nebula had told him briefly what was going on, but he doesn’t think she had time to give him much detail. “I know, I’m...working on it.” 

“Well, good luck, man,” Kraglin says genuinely. 

“Thanks.” Peter nods awkwardly, then takes a step back to head out. 

He hasn’t gotten far before Kraglin calls his name again, then says -- a little stiffly, but still genuine -- “I’m glad you’re, uh, back. Glad to have you back.” 

“Oh, thanks,” Peter says, surprised. Not that he and Kraglin haven’t had some genuine moments, but for most of the time they’ve known each other, their Ravager upbringing had permeated all of their interactions. “Me too.”

“Good luck with Gamora,” Kraglin says earnestly. 

“I don’t need luck!” Peter says, with a cocky grin he doesn’t quite feel. “I got music.”

“Sure, man,” Kraglin says, but it’s with good humor and a smile. Peter waves before quickly leaving the room and all but running down the hall towards the kitchen, hoping Gamora is still there, that she hasn’t come and gone in the time it takes him to get there. 

As it turns out, he doesn’t need to be worried about that. She’s still in the kitchen, he can tell as soon as he approaches from the hallway. The door is open, as it almost always is, making most of it visible from the corridor. Gamora has her back to him, rummaging through one of the cabinets. He stares for a moment at the fluid grace in all of her movements, the hair spilling down her back. 

For a moment it feels like it could be any other morning, or at least any other morning where they’d run out of food or coffee in their own private kitchen in their quarters. Still, it feels like he could just slip in behind her, wrap his arm around her waist. He’d brush her hair to the side and kiss the back of her neck, maybe hum a little something in her ear. She’d make one of those soft happy noises that are reserved just for him, and--

All at once, he remembers that he’s supposed to have a plan here. A plan to get _back_ those things he’s currently fantasizing about. To help _her_ get them back too, even if she doesn’t yet know what she’s missing. And that plan was supposed to start with _her_ running into _him_. 

He could just lean against the doorway here, all cool and casual-like, and wait for her to turn around. But no, that wouldn’t work, because then she’d known he’s been standing here the whole time. Maybe he should go wait out in the hallway for her to leave, and that way she’d run into him out there. But what if she’s planning to eat in here? Then he’d be out there, bored; plus he doesn’t want her to have to eat alone. He can just leave and come back in! But then that would be _him_ running into _her_ when it’s supposed to be the other way around. 

He’s in the middle of contemplating how much the semantics of that matter when, without turning around, Gamora says, “Are you hungry, Peter? Or do you just enjoy standing there?” 

“I--what--?” he stutters. Gamora does turn around then, her eyebrows raised expectantly. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised that she knew he was there; she always does, after all. He _knows_ she can hear his breathing and his heartbeat, that she tends to be hyper-aware of her surroundings; but somehow it still manages to surprise him at times. 

“Uhhh both?” he finally answers, then shakes his head. He can’t blow the whole plan! He can still salvage this. “I mean, uh--hi! F-funny running into you here.” He leans his arm against the doorjamb and only slips a little bit before managing his totally Cool and Casual position. 

“Careful,” says Gamora, glancing at him over her shoulder. Of course by that point he’s already posing, but somehow she’s still managed to hear him stumble. Damn, sometimes he’d swear she’s got eyes on the back of her head.

“Careful of what?” asks Peter, pretending he’s got no idea whatsoever. “I’m just...y’know...here and...stuff.” He watches her for another moment as she turns back and starts going through yet another cabinet. This one is adjacent to the one she’s just finished searching, so she’s turned sideways now and he can see her face a little bit. 

“Yourself,” says Gamora, smirking.

“Oh,” says Peter. “Good point. I am _very_ formidable.” She only reacts to that with the briefest shake of her head, still focused on her task, whatever that is. The Plan involves getting her to listen to more music with him, preferably sharing his headphones. Only now he’s getting more curious about what she’s doing rifling through every cabinet in the kitchen. Curious and a little worried. “Hey...what’re you looking for?”

She sighs, exasperated, and turns to face him again. “Ration bars?”

“Well, if we had any, they’re usually in that one,” he says, pointing to the cabinet next to the one she’s currently looking in. 

“I already checked that one,” she says, shoulders stiffening. He knows she can’t be disappointed that she won’t get to have a ration bar for breakfast, since she absolutely hates them. He thinks he does understand this, though: early on, she felt like she didn’t deserve anything better than basic rations, the things Thanos had always given her. Despite the fact that she has had some other things in the weeks she’s been with them _this_ time around, she is probably yet to feel comfortable getting any of those other things for herself. 

“We must be out, then,” Peter says, grateful for that. “Kraglin always sucked at keeping supplies in stock. But hey, we got some stuff.” He comes up closer and takes a loaf of bread out of the cabinet she has open. “And there’s even some jam spread!” He takes that out too. “This is like the stuff we had last week.”

“Will Kraglin--mind?” Gamora asks. She’s examining the jam spread with interest; she’d really liked the stuff they had before. She’s got quite a sweet tooth, not that that’s anything new. 

“Of course not,” Peter says. “This ship is ours too. But hey, if you want something else, we’ve got way better stuff on the Benatar. I can go and get--”

“No, this will be fine,” she says quickly. She takes the bread, the jam spread, and two plates, setting them on the table. She sits down, so he sits across from her. Then she pauses, looking lost again, sighing.

“What is it?” he asks, watching her. He can tell that she needs something else, but is hesitant to ask for help. It’s another expression he remembers from their early days -- well, their original early days together. He’s never seen it here, though. She’d already been so much more comfortable by the time they’d moved off the Milano. The thought of that makes his heart ache yet again. It had only taken a few months, so maybe it can happen faster this time…

She sighs. “A knife?” The corners of her lips twitch as she realizes what she’s said, not quite a smile. “To spread the jam. Not a _real_ knife.”

“Oh,” he teases, getting up and pulling one from a drawer for her. “You don’t wanna use your sword to make breakfast?” At least Kraglin seems to have kept a decent number of the dishes and cutlery washed. 

She rolls her eyes, taking the knife. “I would never disrespect it that way.” She stabs the small knife into the spread with gusto, though, her movements quick and precise as she slathers a bunch on a slice of bread.

“You don’t wanna toast it first?” Peter asks, amused. 

“Oh,” she says, pausing in her movements. She looks down at the bread as if seeing it for the first time. Peter has to bite back a smile when he sees the flush rise in her cheeks. She clearly either forgot about that step, or forgot that toasting it had to happen before putting the jam on. 

“No,” she continues, lifting her chin and giving him a determined stare, ruined by the darker green blush staining her cheeks and the fact that she’s the worst liar in the galaxy, at least when she’s talking to him. “I like it this way.”

“Hey, me too,” Peter says, hoping to reassure her. Her embarrassment may be adorable, but he also doesn’t want her to be uncomfortable, especially with food. He’s got to get her back to a place where she feels she can eat the things she wants to, doesn’t have to stick with ration bars or other basics. “It’s totally better this way.”

“Do you--want one too?” she asks, looking between him and the loaf of bread. She did get a second plate, after all.

“Yeah, totally,” he says enthusiastically, even though he’d already eaten. He will take literally whatever she offers him right now. 

“Okay,” she says. She takes out another slice of bread, but hesitates, probably unsure whether he wanted her to put the jam on for him. 

Not wanting her to feel obligated, he says, “I can spread it myself! I’m the best jam-spreader in the galaxy.”

She arches an eyebrow though, that statement apparently stirring her sense of competitiveness. Now she moves to hold the knife over her head and away from him, as though he might be about to snatch it from her hand. He sees the familiar flash of humor in her eyes. "What, you don't trust me with a knife?"

Peter puts both hands up in surrender, grinning delightedly. "Oh, hey, my bad. You're the best knife-user in the galaxy, which clearly takes precedence over my jam-spreader status."

She shakes her head, doesn't have a comeback for that -- She's still working on her trash talk, after all. But hey, progress. She also moves to use the knife again, slathering an equally thick amount of jam on the bread for him, which is pretty awesome. Their shared love of sweet things and other junk foods had been one of the first things they'd bonded over when -- well, before. 

He takes the bread when Gamora slides the plate over and bites into it, the silence stretching out between them for a few moments as they both start to eat. 

Then, abruptly, he remembers the plan. He's supposed to be re-wooing her or whatever, not just sitting here stuffing his face like a dumbass. 

"Hey!" he says brightly, then swallows the rest of his current bite. "You wanna hear a song?"

She blinks in surprise, and he nearly actually kicks himself for the suddenness of the question; that was nowhere near the smooth transition he wanted. 

Gamora looks between him and her bread. “While we eat?” 

“Yeah!” he says enthusiastically. “Why not?” 

“No reason,” she says, but that flush on her cheeks that had mostly faded has returned. 

“Hey, we listen to music all the time,” Peter says. He’s not exactly sure why she’s hesitant, but he can tell she still is. That’s not the mood he wants her to be in when he shows her these songs. “When we eat, when we fly, when we fix stuff, when we play games. Sometimes even on jobs!” 

Her eyes widen. “Is that not a distraction?” 

“Sometimes that’s exactly what we need,” he says. Seeing that she’s only growing _more_ skeptical, he adds, “It’s not like we listen to it at super crucial moments or anything like that! Just--sometimes it makes it more fun.” He thinks about the Sons, about what song might have gone well with being kidnapped and watching Gamora suffer; but those aren’t the type of thoughts he wants right now, so he shakes his head to clear them out. 

“If you say so,” Gamora says. She takes a small bite of her bread, holding it close to her as she chews, and it suddenly occurs to Peter why she’s hesitant. 

“You don’t have to guard your food here, you know,” he says gently. “No one is gonna try to take it or attack us or anything.”

“I know that,” says Gamora, bristling. It’s clear that she doesn’t, though, or doesn’t _feel_ it, anyway. He’s pretty sure she understands, at least intellectually, but he also remembers how difficult it was for her to shake the vestiges of Thanos the first time. He wishes it was as simple as knowing that he’s dead, but…

“I know that you know,” says Peter, trying to keep his tone light, easy. “I just -- also know that it can be hard to...to _know_ , yeah?” 

He sighs; He’s spent plenty of time missing the overtly romantic things about their relationship -- kissing her, holding her, lying in bed with her. But suddenly the thing he wants most is the _ease_ he used to have with her. She’s been his best friend for four years, his best friend in a way that he hadn’t had since...well, since his mom died. He misses her support, her compassion...her familiarity with _him._ It’s a peculiar kind of ache, having all of this knowledge about her and knowing also how one-sided it is.

“Anyway, here’s that song!” he says abruptly, turning around to plug his Zune into the speaker by the table and then pressing play. 

_I never met a girl who makes me feel the way that you do_  
It’s alright  
Whenever I’m asked who makes my dreams real  
I say that you do  
You’re outta sight 

Gamora looks surprised at the abruptness of it, but she recovers quickly. He knows that wasn’t the best way to do it but if he hadn’t done it right then, he wouldn’t be able to stop these thoughts and this whole thing could’ve turned really sad, and sadness is the exact opposite of what he needs to happen right now. 

“It is--pleasant,” Gamora says, still slowly chewing her food. He’d be afraid of her unenthusiastic response if it weren’t for the way her head is moving just slightly, her knee bouncing under the table along to the beat. He doubts she even realizes she’s doing it and it makes him grin. 

“It’s The Temptations!” he says. “They’re one of your favorite bands, you love all their songs.”

“Do I?” she asks. He can’t quite read her tone; it’s somewhere between curious and hesitant, but he’s not deterred. Curiosity is good. 

“Yeah, totally,” he says, watching her face for any signs that this might be jogging any memories. He’s not seeing any so far; it’s like she’s hearing it for the first time, despite how many dozens of times they’ve listened to it together. 

She listens quietly for the rest of the song. Her chewing speeds up with the rhythm of it, though, and her first slice of bread has vanished before it ends. She doesn’t take another one from the package right away, though surely she’s still hungry. Instead she stays focused on the music, even drumming her fingers to the beat a little by the time it’s finally over. 

“What did you think?” he asks eagerly, pressing pause on the Zune. He doesn’t want the next song on the list to start playing while they’re still talking. It’s very important for her to concentrate fully on the music to experience it just as he’s planned.

“It was a good song,” she allows. But then she continues before he’s had a chance to say anything else. “Do we have obligations today?”

Peter blinks, surprised by the wording. “Uh...hangin’ out and listening to totally awesome tunes?”

She shakes her head. “No, I mean -- Has anyone heard from the Nova Corps regarding what we’ve learned?”

“About tunes?” he asks, so intensely focused on his plan that he genuinely can’t parse what she’s trying to ask. 

She makes a frustrated noise. “No! About the group they sent us to gather intel on? The group who turned out to be trying to carry on Thanos’ mission to kill half the universe? Who kidnapped us and probably would have killed us if we hadn’t escaped?” 

“Oh,” Peter says with a wince. Right. He can’t believe he forgot that; although hey, tunes are important! Especially these tunes. Still, Gamora _was_ tortured by those assholes, which sparked this whole tunes thing anyway. “Yeah, uh, sorry, I knew that. I haven’t heard anything from ‘em, I’m sure it’s fine.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow. “Have _they_ heard from _us_?” 

“Of course!” he says easily. “I had Mantis send them a message.”

Gamora does not appear reassured. “Nebula does not seem to have faith in Mantis’ messaging abilities.”

“That was about receiving messages,” Peter says, some of the ease slipping from his voice at the reminder. The blinking yellow light, Nebula’s message, _meet me on Titan_ , Gamora… He swallows, shakes his head. “I’m sure she did a great job!” 

“It seems odd that we would not have heard from the Nova Corps after giving them news like that,” Gamora insists. 

Peter shrugs, trying to swallow down those memories. Having a panic attack or crying is _so_ not part of the plan. Gamora is the one who’s supposed to be getting memories flooding back, but so far he seems only capable of doing that for himself. And only in ways that make his heart hurt. “Well, you know. Bureaucracy. They probably have to, like, take the info to a committee or something before they can get back to us.”

“There was no delay between our mission to Cuotis and their sending us to meet the party on Noweii,” she points out, not missing a beat.

“Sure there was,” he cajoles. “Like a whole day and a half!”

She sighs. “It has already been longer than that, Peter.”

“Okay,” he relents, realizing that she isn’t going to give in on this one. But maybe he can still salvage some of the plan. He _is_ great at stalling, after all. “We’ll check in with them after breakfast, okay? But I’m gonna have another piece of bread now. You want one?”

“All right,” she says easily enough. Then, predictably, she takes two more pieces of bread from the package and spreads jam on them herself before handing one over.

“Thank you!” he says brightly. “You truly are the greatest knife-wielder in the galaxy.” She shakes her head but doesn’t otherwise respond besides taking a bite of her own bread, so he continues, totally cool and casual, “You know, I’ve got a whole bunch of songs here. And we can’t just sit here and eat without music.”

“We can’t?” Gamora asks skeptically. 

“Of course not!” Peter says. “Don’t worry, I know you’re gonna love ‘em!”

“And how is that?” she asks. 

Peter hesitates for a brief second, wondering if he should show her this right now. But hey, clearly the songs themselves aren’t gonna be enough to jog her memory; maybe she just needs some more context! Besides, she did ask. 

“Because they’re all on my Gamora playlist!” he says enthusiastically. 

“Your...what?” she asks, pausing with her bread halfway to her mouth. 

“My Gamora playlist!” he repeats. He pulls it up on the Zune, shows her the screen. She looks at it, her expression inscrutable. “It’s a playlist I made for you! It’s got songs you love, songs we listened to together, songs that make me think of you!” 

“Oh,” she says. She bites her lip, and Peter’s hopeful that it’s because she’s emotional, because this is causing something to stir in the back of her mind. 

“Here, this is a good one!” he says, pressing play and watching her face eagerly as the song starts. 

_I would take the stars out of the sky for you  
Stop the rain from falling if you asked me to_

“Those are some impressive promises,” says Gamora, swallowing her latest bite of bread. “Rather lofty for a Terran, aren’t they? Or are there Terrans with powers I am unaware of?”

Those questions send a sharp wave of nostalgia knifing through his chest, not because she’s remembering, but because _he_ is. They’ve had this conversation before, or at least a version of it. It was a bit different then, because it had come on the heels of Ego, and his own brief flirtation with superhuman abilities. He has a momentary crazed thought that maybe, if he still had those powers, none of this would have happened. Maybe he would have been able to stop Thanos, to save her, to do something other than helplessly attempt to carry out that last promise, and then they wouldn’t be--

“Nah,” says Peter, interrupting his own thoughts. He reminds himself forcefully that if he’d kept his powers, if he’d decided not to destroy Ego, that he never would have gotten to be with Gamora at all. “It’s, like, a metaphor. For all the things I’d do to show that I love --” He stops himself abruptly, realizing what he’s about to say and how she’d probably react to it. “Uhhh, you know, the girl in the song. Who’s also metaphorical.”

“The girl is a metaphor?” she asks, confused. 

“Well, maybe the singer wrote it for an actual person,” he says. He clears his throat and tries to will away the flush on his cheeks. “But, uh, the other thing is an expression. Like, he would do anything he could, you know? And even try to do things he couldn’t, for the girl.” 

_If it takes my heart and soul, you know I’d pay the price  
Everything that I possess I’d gladly sacrifice_

He has to take a steadying breath at the mention of sacrificing and souls, but he powers through it. “See? Metaphor! Though the first time you heard this song you didn’t get it either!” 

“I didn’t?” Gamora asks. He wonders if she’s again questioning her ability to be like...well, like the person she used to be. But doesn’t fully remember. Which he’s on a mission to fix. 

“Nope,” he says. “You said it sounded like he was lying, making false promises.” 

“Well, if he cannot do what he is promising…” Gamora says, but again doesn’t sound like it’s a memory. But she’s having the same thoughts as her past self, so maybe that means something is stirring. 

“He would still do anything he had to,” Peter says earnestly. “He would _try_.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Like killing her if she asked?”

Peter freezes, mouth falling open so suddenly that the piece of bread he’s just bitten off falls out of it. This was _not_ what he’d had in mind when he’d pictured getting her to focus on those memories, though of course it’s not like he’s forgotten that that’s one of the few she _has_ gotten back. Why is it so much harder to jog the nice ones? He has a momentary, ridiculous flash of an idea that it would be helpful if only there was a Xurcoils for fun memories rather than guilty ones.

“Uh,” says Peter, struggling to pick his jaw back up. He grabs the bit of bread that’s fallen onto the table and eats it quickly, ignoring the way it scrapes against his throat, which is suddenly very dry. “I mean -- yeah, if that was what she asked.”

“I think that is far more romantic than promising to remove the stars from the sky,” she says pointedly, finishing off the last of her own slice of bread. She picks up a third one and begins methodically spreading jam on it too, her hands perfectly steady. 

“Wait,” he says. “You--You do?”

She shrugs. “My whole life has been about survival. My own interests. Making sacrifices is -- Not a thing I have ever imagined myself capable of.”

“Oh,” he says, throat and chest both feeling tight. He knows far too well that she’s capable of making sacrifices. Sometimes he really wishes she was _less_ capable, but her innate damn goodness is one of the reasons he loves her so much. “Well, you are.” 

“Apparently,” she says, shifting uncomfortably. She always did have difficulty accepting compliments, or just any like...positive statements about herself, though she got way better at it as the years went by. He’s tempted to shower her in compliments right now to try to get her used to it again, but one mission at a time. 

He pauses the Zune again when the song ends. He’s trying to shove the thoughts of Gamora and sacrifices out of his mind, and also figure out which song to play next, when she suddenly says, “I had a dream last night.”

His head snaps up, finger hovering over the Zune’s screen. He tries to read her face but she’s rather determinedly staring down the last piece of bread in her hand. His heart starts galloping, remembering what she’d told him about her dreams of orange and cliffs and Thanos, how she hadn’t realized they were actually memories somehow! This must be another one. Hopefully a happier one than _those_. Not that that would be much of a competition. 

“Do you think it was another memory?” he asks her, trying to tamp down on the eagerness in his voice. 

“I certainly _hope_ it wasn’t,” says Gamora, though she doesn’t sound like she has much actual hope in her voice. She pops the last piece of bread into her mouth and chews it methodically.

For the first time this morning, Peter feels like he’s actually seeing her. Sure, he’d spent plenty of time standing in the doorway watching her from behind. And yeah, he’s been studying her reactions to the songs, to everything he’s been telling her about the food and mornings and their familiar routines. But all he’s really been _seeing_ was the lack of recognition, the differences between her and the woman she’d become. 

Now he sees for the first time how tired she looks, and how worn. He’s been so caught up in his plan, in the idea of triggering more memories, that he’s forgotten how the ones the Xurcoils gave her must still be tormenting her. It’s not like he’s slept particularly well either. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asks finally, once he’s managed to find his voice again. “Or do you wanna hear another song?” Music _had_ been a comfort to her, once she’d gotten used to the idea. And she’d seemed to like his humming that night on the Benatar…

She hesitates, looking lost. “I don’t know,” she says finally, her voice so small that his heart aches for her, even more than it already has been. 

Knowing how tough seemingly simple decisions can be for her when she’s feeling overwhelmed, Peter decides to help her out. “Hey, how about I play a song, and then you can always talk about it if you want to, okay?” He waits for her to nod this time before pressing play. It’s a bit more mellow than the other two songs he’d just played for her, which he thinks is fitting. 

_When you walked into the room_  
There was voodoo in your vibes  
I was captured by your style  
But I could not catch your eyes 

“What is voodoo?” she asks after it’s been playing for a few seconds. 

“Uh, another word for magic,” Peter says. He’s pretty sure, anyway. 

“So he believes this girl is magical?” she asks. Before he can respond, she says, “Or is it another metaphor?”

“Another metaphor,” Peter says, smiling genuinely. “She just seems magical to him, because she’s so awesome.” 

“And that is why he is _into her_?” she asks, as the first chorus plays. 

“One of the reasons,” he says softly. She still looks lost and overwhelmed, probably distracted by her dream. Maybe a different distraction is what she needs; and he’s still hoping to jog some happy memories, since clearly whatever she saw in her dream was not a happy one. “This was one of the first songs I put on this playlist, you know? One of the first songs we listened to on the Zune together.” 

“No,” says Gamora, though there’s no bite in it. “I don’t know. I don’t remember, because those things never happened to me and the Xurcoils didn’t show them to me, and--” She breaks off, shaking her head. “Nevermind.” She takes another piece of bread from the bag, but this time just starts tearing it into little pieces, appetite apparently either sated or just plain lost.

Peter sighs, pressing pause on the Zune again. Clearly this isn’t having the effect he’d intended. The last thing he wants to do is upset her more. It’s bad enough that she seems to be stuck reliving bad memories instead of happy ones; she doesn’t need to be feeling pressure from him on top of it. 

When he really thinks about it, this is a thing he’s accustomed to as well. Back when he was first getting to know her, he’d felt helpless and overwhelmed at the horrors she was sharing from her past, nearly every time she’d said anything about Thanos. He’d always had the impulse to promise that he’d fight Thanos himself, that he’d be able to protect her from reliving any of those horrors ever again. But it had been the wrong thing to say every time, and he’d had to learn that those reflexes were really more about comforting himself than comforting her. Is that what he’s doing now, trying so desperately to bring back memories she might not even want?

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says gently. He pushes the Zune farther onto the table, away from them. “Let’s talk about something else. Do you wanna--?”

“I saw Nebula being tortured,” Gamora blurts out before he can finish. She presses her lips together right after, like she’s trying to keep the words inside even after they’ve already escaped. His grandpa had a saying for that, he suddenly remembers: _You closed the barn door after the horse already bolted_. 

“In your dream?” Peter asks tentatively, not sure she actually wants to share. Well, okay, she clearly does, but he’s not sure she’s _ready_ to. 

Ready or not, though, she nods stiffly. “By Thanos. She was floating in the air. In pieces. He...he wanted something from me, I think, and he was torturing her so that I would give it to him. 

Peter’s throat seems to close, and for a second it’s difficult to breathe. He doesn’t know for certain, but suddenly he’s pretty sure it’s a memory. Nebula had told him a while ago that it was her fault Gamora gave up the location of the Soul Stone. She didn’t give him many details and he didn’t push for them, but he’d bet a considerable amount of units that this is it. 

“That sounds like a memory,” he tells Gamora. He hopes this is the right thing to do; she just looks so lost and uncertain. At least if he can tell her what her dream was, maybe that will help. “Thanos wanted you to tell him where the Soul Stone was. Nebula said that it was her...that she was the reason you did.”

Gamora takes that in thoughtfully, her fingers continuing to play with the bread, to pick up the pieces she’s made and tear them into even smaller ones. When the last of those is nothing but crumbs she looks down abruptly, rhythm broken, and seems to take in what she’s been doing for the first time. She flushes and begins brushing the crumbs into the center of the plate, like she might somehow be able to fix the bread by squishing it back into a solid slice.

“Hey,” says Peter, stilling her hand with a light touch. “Hey, don’t worry about it. We’ve got plenty.”

She doesn’t quite accept that, he can tell, but she does shake herself and refocus on the conversation about her not-quite-dream. “Nebula...was the reason, but _not_ because she betrayed me? Not because she was working with _him_?”

“No,” says Peter, suddenly sure of it, though he’s fully aware that he doesn’t actually know for sure. But he trusts Nebula, when he gets right down to it. He _has_ trusted Nebula for years, especially when it comes to her sister, and to protecting the people she cares about from Thanos. Plus, he’d seen the guilt and regret in her eyes when she’d said it. Nebula will always feel far worse about her failures as a hero than about her worst transgressions as a Daughter of Thanos. “No, I think -- I think you gave it up to save her.”

“I think so too,” Gamora says, biting her lip hard for a moment, the way she does when it’s all that’s keeping her from crying. “She said that I told her I had found the Soul Stone, and that is how Thanos found out that I knew.” She shakes her head and takes a shaky breath. “I should not have told her. I put her in danger--”

She breaks off and, desperate to keep her from crying, Peter reaches out and puts his hand over hers where she’s gripping the edge of the table hard. “Hey, hey,” he says gently. “It’s okay. Don’t...you can’t feel guilty about that. You’re not allowed to feel bad about stuff you can’t remember.”

Gamora blinks, some of the guilt and sadness on her face transforming into confusion, which Peter will totally take. “Is that so?” 

“Yep, definitely,” he says firmly, deciding he’s now fully committed to this. “It’s a rule. Like...okay, apparently this one time when I was still with the Ravagers, I got super drunk at this club we were at, and I insisted that I could jump from the top of our table to the top of the bar.”

“Could you?” Gamora asks. 

“I could not,” he says solemnly. “But I guess I _could_ get just enough height to knock down all the glasses they had hanging, and a lot of their bottles of alcohol. I woke up in the hospital and to this day, no Ravagers are allowed in that bar.” 

“But you don’t remember it because you were drunk?” she asks. She gathers a few of the bread crumbs in her fingers and smooshes them into a tiny ball. Then she squishes _that_ between two fingers so that it falls to pieces again. 

Peter swallows, trying not to think of the way he’d watched Mantis and Drax fall to ash. The way he’d had _just enough_ time to register that Thanos had taken so very many of his friends before the relief of the realization that it was going to take him too. “Right. Right, I don’t um -- I don’t remember, because I was drunk and so I’m not allowed to feel bad about it because I said so. I even named it, Peter’s Law.”

She considers for a moment, then shakes her head. “And your drunken stunts are supposed to make me feel better about the fact that I allowed my father to murder half of the known universe?”

Peter sighs. She has a point when she puts it like that. “Come on, we both know he was never your father,” he says anyway. He knows she only talks about Thanos that way when she’s feeling particularly self-loathing. 

For a while, she doesn’t say anything; she seems to be hesitating as she continues to play with her bits of bread. That might have been the wrong thing to say, but he’s heard her correct other people hundreds of times over the years when they refer to Thanos as her father, and he’s not about to let her make herself feel bad with it.

Finally, Gamora says, “That does not seem like the same thing.” Which isn’t really a response, but she doesn’t argue with him, so it’s probably as good as it could get. “But thank you. For sharing.”

“Anytime,” he says sincerely. “And okay, yeah, maybe it’s not the same thing. But you know what? You are _doubly_ not allowed to feel guilty about that.”

“And why is that?” she asks in a tired sort of voice, but not a tired _of_ him voice. It’s almost amused. 

“Because you did it to protect someone you love,” he says simply. “And that’s pretty cool.”

She arches a silver brow. “Cool?”

“Hell yeah!” Peter says. “You’re the coolest person I know.”

“Cool,” she repeats, almost to herself, like she’s testing the word out. She looks hesitant to apply it to herself, but he knows she’d secretly liked it when Groot used to call her cool, before he started going through this phase where everything everyone does is lame. “Those kids on Xandar who recognized us...They thought I was cool.”

“They did!” Peter says, happy that this conversation seems to be going in a better direction. He’s thinking about testing the waters with a story of some other times people thought she was _cool_ , but then she tries unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn and he shifts gears into concern instead. “Hey, did you get any sleep last night? After your...dream?”

She shrugs dismissively. "I have told you before, I don't require as much sleep as you do."

Peter sighs. He knows all too well that that's an excuse, practically a code for the fact that she hasn't slept, usually hasn't even tried to go back to sleep after a nightmare. "I guess I can't really blame you for not wanting to go back to sleep after a dream like that."

She presses her lips together, a familiar expression of stubbornness. "It would have been pointless to try. A waste of time."

"Gamora…" He trails off, heart aching. She clearly isn't going to back down, though, and the last thing he wants to do is start an argument with her when she's this worn down. Well, technically speaking, he never wants to start an argument with her. "Okay. So...what did you do with the time when you definitely didn't need to be sleeping?"

She hesitates again, an odd sort of shyness on her face that he can't quite read. "Well...at first I thought I might find Nebula to ask her about my dream. But…"

"But we never got to finish our tour?" he guesses, feeling guilty about the fact that he's managed to leave her alone and afraid in the middle of the night. Even if she was the one who'd refused to finish it in the first place. 

“I could not find her room,” Gamora finishes, but she doesn’t sound too upset about it. “I searched the ship for a while, and I never did. I did run into Groot, though.” 

“How did that go?” Peter asks, intrigued. She also doesn’t sound upset about that, despite the fact that Groot hasn’t exactly been warm to her this entire time. In fact, as she speaks, a little smile makes its way onto her face. 

“Well,” she says. “We played video games. It was...fun.” 

“That’s awesome,” Peter says sincerely. A pang of jealousy hits him in the chest but he swallows it down; the fact that Groot has managed to bring that little smile to her face is a _good_ thing. And it doesn’t mean that he’s failed just because he’s scarcely made her smile all day. 

“It _was_ awesome,” Gamora says, stumbling slightly over the word like it’s foreign to her tongue, which he supposes it is. She never said it a whole lot, but she did it add it to her vocabulary after knowing him for a while. He grins, because she seems to be willing to add it again. 

“You know what else would be awesome?” Peter asks. At Gamora’s questioning look, he stands up and offers her his hand. 

“What?” she asks, eyeing his hand not exactly with suspicion, but with some hesitation. 

“Finishing the tour!” He wiggles his fingers hopefully. He slips the Zune into his pocket with his other hand. “With or without a soundtrack.” 

She hesitates for just another second before her smile widens and she takes his hand, letting him help her up. “That does sound awesome.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to everyone who commented!! <3

The knife feels achingly familiar. The metal warms almost instantly in her palm, absorbing he heat of her body like a sponge. Or like a leech. 

She’s spent plenty of nights not sleeping, balancing this knife on each of her fingers; watching the proportions of her body change relative to it as she grew, as little else about her life progressed. As Thanos kept his grip on her, as absolute as it had been that first day. 

Only something _is_ different now: It isn’t night, and Thanos isn’t here, though his shadow still somehow looms large as ever.

Larger, even.

Gamora has the distinct sense that something is wrong. Something very bad is coming -- _Thanos_ is coming. 

_That’s_ what it is, she realizes all at once. Thanos is ahead because he is not here, because she’s managed to escape from him for what now feels like nothing more than a brief, cruelly tantalizing daydream. She’s managed to leave him behind, outrun him for a time, but now...Now she can’t do that anymore, because the price of her own continued happiness would be far too high. She allowed herself to be distracted, lulled into passivity by this knife as a child. She _cannot_ do that again.

Peter is here. She knows it before she sees him, can sense him as if he’s a part of herself. It sometimes feels like he is. 

He’s speaking, but she can’t understand what he’s saying, the words distorted like they’re being filtered through water. She’s filled with a sense of dread as he talks, though she doesn’t think it has anything to do with the words she can’t parse. There’s affection in there too, and sorrow. She wishes she could avoid saying what she knows she has to say, is going to say. She knows she’s going to hurt him. 

They’re both talking now, though she can’t understand what _she_ is saying either. She can only understand the feelings, and the horrible pit in her stomach as the moment of truth approaches. Perhaps she _can_ avoid this, she thinks suddenly, desperately. Maybe she doesn’t have to do this. She can’t hurt Peter. What is the universe compared to him, after all? Nothing, nothing, but --

“--kill me,” she hears herself say, the only words she’s understood this whole time. She’s done it, she’s pulled the trigger. There’s horror on his face and in her heart. He’s trying to joke it off but she doesn’t let him. She can’t understand anymore but she feels even worse. Only about herself and what she’s done to him, though; Peter does exactly what she wants him to, she knows, and she’s crying, and _gods_ , she loves him _so much_. 

She wakes up just as she’s about to kiss him. 

She’s sitting up when her eyes open, when the dream tears itself away from her. Or maybe when her mind tears itself away from the dream. As a child she had become adept at waking herself at the slightest sign of danger, at even the approach of a sibling in a neighboring room. Maybe waking now was that same defense, only to something inside her head rather than outside. 

Exhaling a shaky breath, Gamora allows herself to fall back against the pillows, which are basic in comparison to the enormous bed Peter showed her on that first day of his tour, but still by far the nicest she’s ever had. Shoving the heels of her hands against her closed eyelids, she wills herself not to think of the bed, not to think of--

But it’s no use, because the images of Peter, of that moment she’d asked him to do the unthinkable, come flooding back again. She _wants_ to believe that it’s a nightmare, that it’s nothing more than the guilt she feels over hurting him coalescing in her subconscious. But she knows without question that it isn’t, that it’s a memory, that she really _has_ caused him that pain and more. 

_“I’d like to, I really would,”_ she hears him saying skeptically, more of the words she couldn’t make out in the dream swimming back up from the depths of her mind even as she tries to keep them buried. Her fingers twitch as she suddenly remembers pressing them over his lips, silencing him, the wet heat of his breath against them as his words had died.

“Stop,” she hisses through her teeth. She’s not sure if she’s yelling at herself now or her dream self, or just her damn mind for showing her these things. Why is this happening? _How_ is this happening? 

She’s been asking herself that for days, and she’s no closer to an answer. Even though she has mostly accepted that she is not so _other_ from her past-future self, she did not actually have these experiences. She should not have these memories, and yet somehow here they are. 

For the past couple of days, though, she has not had any memories come back to her this strongly; not since the dream she had of Nebula being tortured. Since she confirmed with her sister that that was an actual memory, she has pretty much given up the idea that these dreams could be simply dreams. 

_“Swear to me,_ ” she hears in her mind, her own voice imploring Peter to do something he should never have had to even consider. She growls, wanting to scream at herself. Peter didn’t deserve that. 

He hasn’t been in her dreams much lately, but she should have expected that he would be now, with how nice he’s been to her the past couple of days. Not that he wasn’t nice to her before -- well, with a few exceptions when she’d first joined...rejoined?...the team -- but he’s been doing so many nice things for her since the Sons incident that she has no idea how to cope with it. 

It had started with the completion of his tour around the ship. She'd been wary at first, worried that he was going to try and push her to inhabit the captain's quarters again; the captain's quarters that used to be _theirs_ , that were so heavily suffused with memories of their life before that she'd felt like she was going to suffocate; so full of wonderful things she'd wanted _so badly_ that she'd nearly come undone. In her life, good things are always a trap. Like that treacherous, beautiful knife that had distracted her from any attempts at saving her mother. That had failed to kill _her_ when she'd needed it to. 

He hadn't taken her back to those quarters, though. Instead he'd showed her around the rest of the ship. He'd started with the big things, like the cockpit and the gym, both of which had made her head spin all over again. But then he'd moved on to smaller things that were somehow even better. More personal. A room where as a young one, Groot had been allowed to paint the walls with wild splatters of color. A nook with unique acoustics, where playing music brought out all kinds of intricacies in the melody and instrumentation that had previously been obscured. A hallway next to the ship's engines where one entire wall was covered in vines that flowered purple. Voln lilies, he'd called them. Flourishing as they fed on the sound of the heavy engine equipment. 

That had almost caused her to come undone again; for her entire life, she’d desired pretty, delicate things but had never been able to have them. Peter had found these flowers specifically for her, he’d explained, because they are one of the few plants that thrive on spaceships. He had probably been hoping that would stir a memory for her, but all it had stirred was emotions. Still, he was nothing but supportive and sweet, so much so that it had made her chest ache even more. 

He’s also apparently made it his personal mission to ensure that she never has to eat a ration bar again, despite her assurances that they are more than adequate for her needs. She has to admit that she hadn’t fought him very hard when he insisted otherwise, though, since she _hates_ ration bars, something she’s sure Peter knows. He’s promised to show her chocolate (again) as soon as they make another supply run, something she also didn’t bother to protest, as she apparently loves it. Despite her usual instincts to not take anyone’s promises to heart, she can’t help but believe him. 

Though one instance she obviously should _not_ have trusted him on was his assurance that the Nova Corps had _totally been communicated with_. He _had_ told Mantis to send them a message, but she had apparently failed to notice or return any of their subsequent follow-up messages, calls, pages, and basically every other form of communication that Dey had used to attempt to contact them after Mantis’s “alarming” message. 

In fact, Dey had been _so_ alarmed by the message that Peter had played it back to investigate, and then it had been completely obvious why. The message had amounted to 'we got kidnapped by the Sons of Thanos, talk to you later!' Nothing about their having escaped, not actual intel at all. Peter had set the record straight there, though, in a surprisingly mature and sophisticated way. 

She'd been certain at the time that he would tell the others about her breakdown, about the incredible weakness she'd revealed to him. It had seemed inevitable that day after, when she'd followed her night of crying by bolting from his attempted tour of the ship. She'd expected him -- all of them, really -- to take advantage of it somehow, if not to hurt her then to humiliate her at least. 

Only they hadn't. The others hadn't because they hadn't known. Because Peter hadn't told them, she'd learned later. He'd only mentioned the part where she'd cleaned his wounds, then claimed to have passed right out again from the gas.

And now all she can think about is the dreams -- no, memories -- of how she's hurt him. Of the shock on his face at the request to kill her, of the way his hand that held the blaster had been shaking. 

How can he be so kind to her when she’s hurt him so much? She doesn’t seem to be capable of doing anything else. Her past self hurt him, and her present self is hurting him every single day, by not being who he needs her to be. She doesn’t deserve his kindness, and yet he continues treating her with it. 

He mentioned nothing of the Xurcoils when they finally did speak to Dey, nothing about needing to take care of her after. Thankfully it was just the two of them on the call, something Peter probably orchestrated on purpose. He also insisted that they couldn’t come to the Nova Corps headquarters right away like Dey had wanted them to, saying that they needed a few days to recuperate and “lie low,” for which she is intensely grateful. She’s not certain Peter did that for her, but she is pretty sure that he did. 

Every single day that goes by, she sees more and more reasons for why she...well, felt for him the way that she did...does. And why she couldn’t possibly deserve his affection in return, either in the past or the present. 

His face from the memory suddenly comes swimming back into her mind clearer than before, the agony and sadness but still _kindness_ in his eyes as he’d looked at her, her hand over his mouth. Despite what she’s just asked him to do, she can see the love there. She can feel her own pain and see his as clearly as if she had actually experienced it. 

What she wants to do is go back in time, choose a different path that could alter those horrible images. Make them not memories, render them only nightmares. Because surely she would have chosen a different path than -- She just would have. She would be braver, crueler, less blinded by deceitful, soft things like love. Perhaps she would have killed herself right then and there, upon learning that Thanos was making his move on the Stones. Protected the galaxy from his ever getting them all. Protected Peter from the guilt he so clearly feels now at -- trying to kill her? Or failing to succeed? Both, she senses, impossible as that might seem. 

And really, when she lets herself think about it, the images playing on the backs of her eyelids over and over again like a malfunctioning holo, what she wants most in the universe is to protect Peter _now_. She wants to throw her arms around him, hold him tight, feel the solid warmth of his body against the cold that always seems to pervade hers these days. She wants to make the images not memories for him too. 

For a fleeting moment she wonders whether he might have preferred never knowing her at all, with this as the alternative. This cruel purgatory where she simultaneously is and never will be the person he wants. She has the feeling he would say no, but she's not sure if she would believe him. 

A deep shiver runs through her at the thought. She knows that Peter might be better off if he’d never known her, but _she_ definitely would not; no version of herself would be. He’s already made her happier than she’s ever been in her life in just the past few weeks, let alone what he apparently did for her for four years. 

Without consciously making the decision to do so, she swings her legs over the edge of the bed and stands up, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders to fight off that pervasive chill. She doesn’t know if it’s the memories making her this cold or just the temperature of the ship or both. Peter told her they’d installed a separate temperature control for their quarters because of how cold she tends to get, but the rest of the ship runs off of the same one. That’s another luxury she cannot imagine ever having. 

She stands aimlessly by the bed for a little while, not sure what to do with herself or all the emotions swirling around inside her. She knows what she _wants_ to do: she wants to go to Peter’s room, to wrap her arms around him and never let go, as if she could possibly protect him from herself and all she’s done to hurt him. When he’d shown her the room he’s been sleeping in on the tour, he’d told her to feel free to come get him if she ever wants to, no matter what time it is or what she needs, but she’s yet to take advantage of that offer. 

She isn’t going to now either, she tells herself. She isn’t. That would be ridiculous, waking him up in the middle of the night like a scared child after a nightmare. It would fly in the face of her desire to protect him, would be hurting him in its own form, both in depriving him of the rest he needs and by not being the woman that he wants. The fact that he’s not sleeping in the quarters they used to share proves it further. 

What she needs is to get warm, and she doesn’t need _him_ for that. This blanket is far more than she’s ever had before, and she’s survived this long in life. There is no way the temperature on this ship is actually in a range that could possibly harm her. Still, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders doesn’t seem to be doing anything. She paces across the room and back again, hoping the activity will help, or maybe at least distract her from the images that are threatening to come pouring in: the snow coming down, the ice all around her, under her. 

Her feet have carried her out of the room and into the hallway before she’s even realized it. 

She curses softly to herself. Is she so weak that she doesn’t even have control over her own body anymore? She thinks of the silver on her abdomen and realizes that she hasn’t for a while now. 

The hallway is even colder than the room. Or maybe it’s just that damn memory seeping through her and freezing her from the inside out. She knows that’s impossible but sometimes that’s how it feels. Gods, she hates the cold, she really, really does, and here she is in the middle of the night, standing in an empty hallway wrapped in a blanket, shivering and -- Dammit, now she can feel the beginnings of tears pricking at the back of her eyes. 

This is unacceptable, she decides. She will not let herself cry like this. She’ll just go _near_ Peter’s room--or, the room he’s been sleeping in. Just to hear his heartbeat, his breathing, assure herself that he’s okay. And he always seems to radiate a particular kind of warmth; maybe being near him, even through a wall, will help warm her up too. 

She knows she is pathetic, but she goes anyway. 

The quarters Peter has been using are just down one hall from hers, and she’s grateful that she doesn’t have to trudge across the ship to get to it. When she does, she stands outside the door, listening to the fragile, kind Terran heart she can hear beating inside. Something in her relaxes just a little; Peter’s here, he’s alive, he’s...awake? 

It’s not just his heartbeat, which she can hear, much faster than it is when he’s asleep. Not that she’s been paying enough attention to know those intricacies of his body or anything. She definitely hasn’t, it’s just -- It’s just that she can’t seem to help noticing. But it _isn’t_ just that now, though that was the first thing she noticed. Now she can also hear music coming from inside his room. It’s soft, but it’s unmistakable and she moves closer to make out the words.

_Touching you_  
So warm and tender  
Lord, I feel such a sweet surrender  
Beautiful is the dream that makes you mine 

The melody of the song matches the lyrics, sweet and tender but also upbeat, hopeful. Like Peter, she thinks. Like the Peter in her memories, and also now. The sound of it _does_ make her feel warmer and in the end, it’s the song that spurs her into action again despite all of her convictions. She listens for another few seconds before moving the rest of the way to the door and knocking, needing to be closer to all of those wonderful sounds, heartbeat and song alike.

The music stops then, and she regrets that she’s interrupted it. But then another wonderful sound, Peter’s voice, says softly, “Gamora?” She doesn’t know if he’s actually sensed her somehow, but she thinks he sounds almost...hopeful? Though that could just be wishful thinking on her part. 

Before she has a chance to answer, or decide if she’s going to, she hears the sound of quick movement, like he’s getting off the bed, and then the door is swinging open. 

“Gamora!” he repeats. He scans her, taking in the blanket wrapped around her and the rest of her likely disheveled appearance. He looks slightly alarmed. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says, because she is physically unhurt, which is probably what he’s worried about right now. After all, why else would she come to his door in the middle of the night, when they both should have been asleep? 

She suddenly feels both foolish and guilty for making him worry and disturbing him. He was listening to his music and was probably relaxed and happy, and now she’s ruined that. Though she does wonder why _he_ wasn’t asleep. He’s certainly dressed for it, in nothing but a tight t-shirt and boxers, which are pretty short on him --

Her eyes snap back up to his face and she wills the flush she can feel rising in her cheeks to _go away_. She’s grateful that Peter can’t hear _her_ heartbeat or he’d be able to hear the way it’s suddenly accelerated. 

“I had another -- well, not dream,” says Gamora, because it feels like she has to explain now, lest he think she came here just because she wanted -- Well, technically speaking, she _did_ come here just because she wanted to see him. But it wasn’t because of a physical attraction, wasn’t some kind of silly crush. She did _not_ come here just because she somehow wanted to look at his thighs in boxer shorts, though she can’t deny that _did_ make her feel warmer in a way.

“You remembered something else?” asks Peter, his face lighting up. He looks back and forth between them again, seems to take in the fact that they’re still standing in the hall. Abruptly he steps back, motioning her inside. “C’mon, come in.”

She steps inside, wrapping her arms across her chest. She’s suddenly acutely aware of the fact that the blanket is dragging behind her like a weird, heavy sort of cape. But also she’s still shivering too much to just let it go. Instead she tries -- mostly unsuccessfully -- to pull it as close as possible. 

“Are you cold?” Peter asks, looking at her with concern. 

“No,” she lies instinctively, though he can most certainly tell that she is. It’s not like she’s being subtle. But she’s already displaying so much weakness in front of him, it feels even more vulnerable to admit it out loud. 

He bites his lip, looking like he wants to fight her on that. But after a moment, he just says, “Okay.” 

She shifts, trying to re-adjust the blanket again to somehow make it warm her up more. They spend a couple awkward moments in silence, and Gamora is wondering for the dozenth time whether this was a horrible idea, when he speaks again. 

“Do you wanna talk about the memory?” he asks, and there’s a slight eager, hopeful lilt in his voice that crushes her heart, because she knows he’s hoping it was a good memory. She would love to be able to tell him that it was, that she remembered one of the many wonderful things he’s told her about. But instead, she is going to have to disappoint him, to hurt him once more. 

“I--don’t want it to let you down,” she says, wanting to give him some kind of warning, loathe though she is to take that light out of his eyes. “With what it is.”

“Hey, you won’t,” he says gently. He reaches out tentatively to put a hand on her arm, and when she doesn’t shrug away -- and, with great effort, doesn’t lean into his touch like she wants to -- he rubs her arm just a little in a comforting motion. “Was it another bad one?”

“It was -- hazy,” she hedges, still not quite able to tell him the full truth. She’s being foolish and she knows it, but -- well, she isn’t in control right now. That is the sad reality of this situation. She isn’t in control of her mind, or her emotions, or her body and if she were, then she wouldn’t be standing here in the middle of the night like a child wanting a hug. The fact that that’s _exactly_ what she wants right now brings a fresh flush to her cheeks. 

“Well,” says Peter, without even a hint of impatience at the fact that she’s come barging into his room and now is being stingy with the explanation, “sometimes memories are like that, you know? But...if you tell me about it, maybe I can help fill in the gaps? If you want.”

She hesitates, tries to come up with the words to even begin. Tries to picture that moment on the ship, with the knife in her hand -- and instead finds her mind flooded with images of the cliff, the snow, a fresh chill running through her even though she’s insisted that she is not cold. 

“What I _want_ ,” she says sharply, the words tumbling out like a final testament to her loss of any modicum of self control, “is to get warm.” She pulls the blanket even tighter to punctuate that point.

“Okay,” Peter breathes, his voice soft and a little sad. “Okay.”

Something about the way that he says it sends a dagger of adrenaline lancing through her chest. Instantly she knows that she’s heard this before, perhaps in the very memory that’s currently in the process of worming its way back into her mind. 

She shivers again and feels stupid for how near she is to crying again just because she’s so damn cold. Hasn’t she cried enough already? She could at least not be so emotional over something as silly as temperature. But god, she hates the cold _so much_ and she feels like she’s been cold her whole damn life. 

Peter’s hand is still on her arm and that spot is warmer than all the rest of her. He raises his other hand tentatively towards her other arm but stops short of actually touching her. 

“Can I give you a hug?” he asks, sounding and looking so genuinely like he wants to help that she hardly knows what to do. The idea of allowing him to comfort her feels so vulnerable and weak, but she _wants_ it. 

She nods before she can talk herself out of it, and Peter slowly enfolds her in his arms. She’d have plenty of time to pull away if she wanted before he gets his arms all the way around her, but suddenly she has no desire to ever be anywhere else but right here. Her arms are trapped between them because she doesn’t want to take them out of the blanket, but she leans her head against his warm, broad chest and feels his arms tighten around her as she does.

“Relax,” he says gently, which makes his voice rumble through her, a bit muffled where her ear is pressed against his chest. It’s an odd sensation, being close enough to anyone to _feel_ their voice, but she thinks she sort of likes it, the same way that she likes recognizing his heartbeat and breathing. “Relax, I gotcha.”

“I am relaxed,” says Gamora, though she definitely leans a bit further into him at that. Very slowly, she works the blanket so that she’s holding the two ends of it bunched up in one hand and her other is free. Then she moves it around to rest against his back, her arm not quite wrapped around his waist. Still, it feels even nicer. And it’s very possible that he thinks it feels nice too, judging by the way he exhales a soft sound from the back of his throat, something a little more pleasurable than a sigh.

“You’ve always hated being cold,” he says, running his hand over her back the same way he had done with her arm, only with bigger movements. It seems so natural the way he touches her, and she has to remind herself yet again that that’s because it _is_ for him. Peter has had years of experience doing this for her, probably knows her own body better than she does right now, and...that’s kind of a terrifying thought.

But still, she can take advantage of that fact right now, she supposes, when that knowledge is helping make her feel warmer. The way he’s touching her feels so good she can’t help but melt against him even more than she already has been, and it’s all she can do to keep a similar sound to the one he made from slipping out from her lips. She can see why she liked...likes being touched this way. 

It is not quite enough to distract her completely, though; her mind is apparently a stubborn thing. “I have been...remembering my death again,” she says after they’ve been silent for who knows how long; she’s startled to realize that she’s lost track, caught up in being held. 

“Oh,” he breathes. She can feel the warmth of it against the top of her head. Is _every_ part of him warm? “Is that what’s making you feel so cold?” 

“A memory--or whatever this is--cannot make me cold,” she says stubbornly, even though she has felt chilled to the bone every time the images come into her head. Merely a coincidence. 

“Of course not,” Peter says, sounding very much like he doesn’t believe her. He’s still rubbing her back and it feels good, but he must feel when another tremor runs through her, less powerful than before. “Do you want another blanket?” 

“I want -- I don’t know,” says Gamora. She wants to feel warmer, but the blanket seems the least helpful thing for that at the moment. She wants to stop having nightmares, to stop having these painful memories resurface when she is at her most vulnerable. 

“Okay,” he says, kind as ever. He brings his hand up higher, stroking it over her hair. That only makes her shudder harder, though not with cold this time. “You know what? Choices are hard sometimes when your brain’s bein’ a dick. I shoulda known that.”

“My brain is fine,” she says instinctively, though ‘bein’ a dick’ is exactly what it’s doing at the moment. 

Peter ignores that, just moves straight ahead as if she hasn’t said anything at all. “Clearly blankets aren’t cutting it. So it’s time to bring out the next thing in my anti-cold arsenal. Cause yeah, I totally have one of those.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow, though she’s dimly aware that he can’t see it with her head still mostly buried against his chest. “What, a blow torch?”

He snorts. “Nah. A pillow fort!”

“Oh,” she says softly, attempting -- poorly, she’s pretty sure -- to conceal the longing in her voice. She remembers when he told her about them, how he used to make them for her after she had a nightmare. She still can’t quite fully picture what one looks like, but if it has the magical comforting properties he seems to think it does...She would really like to get warm. “Okay.” 

“Awesome!” Peter says enthusiastically. He pulls back from the hug, which makes her kind of regret her decision; until she sees the eager, happy look on his face. “It’s gonna be great, you’ll see! Pillow forts are the best, and I’m the best pillow fort maker in the galaxy!” 

“Is there an official contest for that?” she asks, watching as he starts bustling around, stripping sheets and blankets off the bed. Though she’s gotten colder again when he let go of her, she’s still warmer than she was before she came in here, and something about watching him right now is making her feel a little warmer too. 

“Well, no,” he admits. “But I don’t need to compete to know I’m the best. You’ll see.” He moves the two rickety looking chairs and small table -- the only other furniture in this room -- and spreads them out across from the foot of the bed. 

“I maintain that it should be called a blanket fort,” she says, watching as he grabs one more from the room’s tiny closet. 

“But it uses pillows too!” Peter says, tossing the two pillows from the bed onto the floor. “Usually we have way more than two, but we have an extra blanket to make up for it!” 

“If there are more blankets than pillows,” says Gamora, “does that not make it a blanket fort?” 

“There are an equal number of blankets and pillows,” he says, pointing to the two pillows, then the two blankets. He shakes out one blanket, then the other, spreading them on the floor to make an odd sort of nest. “And in the case of a draw, the house wins.” He leans back toward her and stage whispers, “The house is the pillows, they win.”

Gamora rolls her eyes, suppressing a smile. “But it isn’t equal. Two pillows, _three_ blankets.” She lifts the ends of the one around her shoulders and flaps them like ridiculous wings. 

Peter just shakes his head, though. “Nope. That one’s not part of the fort. Doesn’t count.”

“Surely it will be part of the fort when I enter it, though,” she points out. 

“Wouldn’t that make you part of the fort too, then?” he asks with a smirk. “If everything inside it is part of it?”

She bites her lip, feeling like he’s got her there but not wanting to admit defeat. “Yes,” she says with a determined tilt of her chin. 

Peter chuckles and tosses his holo on top of the pillow-blanket nest. “Is the holo part of the fort too?”

“Yep,” she says, popping the ‘p’ at the end. He’s not going to win this one. 

He shakes his head, but he’s grinning widely. “All right, fine, you win. It’s a Gamora fort, then.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “But there will only be one of me in it. Far fewer than the number of blankets.”

“Yeah, but you win everything you’re a part of,” he says cheekily. He grabs the sheets off the bed and starts draping them over the furniture and the foot of the bed, but he still throws her a wink that makes her abdomen feel much warmer. If she were to lift her shirt, she knows it would be especially bright silver. 

Still, she finds that she is still smiling, and it’s an effort to keep herself from downright grinning. Perhaps the fort is already working its magic. Or maybe that’s just Peter. 

"How does one enter a pillow fort?" she asks, because it's not at all evident where the entrance is intended to be and she does not want to damage the thing or otherwise disrespect the tradition. 

"Ah!" says Peter, lifting the edge of the sheet and gesturing grandly. "You crawl! After you, m'lady!"

She rolls her eyes. "What am I, some sort of noble woman?"

"The most noble woman _I've_ ever met," he says in a perfectly genuine tone that makes her flush all over again. Then he waggles his eyebrows obnoxiously. "Besides, you _are_ wearing a very fashionable gown." He gestures to her blanket-cape with his free hand. 

"You are ridiculous," she says. "Everything about this is ridiculous." But she does as instructed, getting down on her knees and scrambling into the fort before she can look at his face again, before she can see any of the particular softness she knows she would find there. 

"Yep!" He says brightly, crawling in after her and letting the sheet fall back into place, blocking out the view of the rest of the room. "That's what makes it so awesome."

“Oh, is that how it works?” she asks, attempting to sound casual even though she’s feeling a little awkward now that she’s inside the fort. She sits stiffly on one side, watching Peter to see if there’s some special way she’s supposed to be doing this that she just doesn’t know. 

“Absolutely,” he says easily, sitting on the side opposite her. There’s hardly enough room for the two of them to sit in here without touching, but he does so anyway, and she’s not sure whether to be grateful for that consideration or disappointed that he’s not touching her. She tries to tell herself it’s the former, but even she’s not fooled. “All the best things are a little ridiculous!”

“And dark?” Gamora asks, looking around the tent, not that there’s much to see. The sheets aren’t very opaque, but the lights are off in the room and the dim light that was coming from the stars out the port window is having trouble penetrating the fort. 

“Oh, no!” Peter says, and he suddenly turns on the holo. “That’s what this is for!” 

The light from the screen helps a little, though it’s not the most pleasant. But Peter seems to have some sort of plan, because he’s still messing around with the holo. After a few moments, a projection turns on and Gamora nearly gasps out loud; there are now dozens and dozens of tiny points of light projected all over the sheets, making it appear as though they’re surrounded by stars. She’s reminded strongly of what she’d told him when he was first telling her about these forts he used to make for her: how her people had believed the stars were gods, and how it felt to be among them. 

" _Oh,_ " she breathes, trying very hard not to cry again. This time it's not out of fear or grief or frustration, but gratitude. She has that peculiar sense of wonder again at the fact that a person like him could ever exist -- someone who knows her so well and only wants the best for her. It's overwhelming, utterly alien to her...but nice all the same. She could not deny that even if she wanted to. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah," he says, with that familiar soft warmth. "I like it too." Then he stretches out very carefully, maneuvering his stupidly broad shoulders and his ridiculously long legs until he's lying on the ground with his head propped up on one of the pillows. She can see the projection of the stars reflected in his eyes as he looks up at her, as he slowly lifts one arm in offering. "Come here?"

She ought to refuse, _would_ refuse under any other circumstances. But there's something about those stars in his eyes, about the light and the tent and the longing in her chest. Some sort of Terran magic spell. So instead of refusing, instead of calling him ridiculous again, she allows herself stretch out too, to lie down against his side and rest her head on his shoulder. 

For a brief moment, she doesn’t allow herself to fully relax, lying tense against him. But then he wraps his arm around her back and tilts his head just a little bit so that his cheek is resting lightly on the top of her head, and she just can’t help it. She moves her arm tentatively to lie across his stomach, keeping it under the blanket so it’s partially covering him now too. She reminds herself that they have done this before, right after the Xurcoils, but that felt different somehow. Less intentional.

“You good?” Peter murmurs. She feels more than hears his voice, both in his breath against her hair and the rumble of his chest under her ear. 

She nods, doesn’t trust her voice quite yet. This is...very good. Much better than she wants to admit to herself, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny. His mere presence does something to her insides, but _this_ , being pressed up so close to him, being held by him in a place that feels so intimate… She feels warm and safe and _good_ , things she’s hardly ever felt before in her life, that she can remember. And all because of a person who ought to hate her for how much she’s hurt him. 

“I remembered the day that I asked you to kill me,” says Gamora, the words slipping out almost without her realizing. It’s ironic because she had just resolved _not_ to share them, or at least not to share them right now, when everything feels so safe and good. And yet it’s precisely _because_ she feels safe and good that she finds herself finally able to say it. She wonders whether it was like that before, as well, whether she’d shared the horrors of her past with him after she’d already begun to feel better.

Peter sucks in half a breath, but that’s his only reaction as far as she can tell. He doesn’t push her away in horror, doesn’t curse, doesn’t even tense. Maybe he was even expecting that response from her, judging by that reaction. “What -- did you remember about it?”

“The knife,” she says immediately, that image coming back to her first. “The one Thanos gave me the day he killed my parents. The day he took me. I had it in my hand when it -- When I realized I had no choice. That I had to die, and that I had to ask you to do it.”

“Mora,” he breathes, his voice full of pain. She feels horrible for bringing it up, and wonders if she’s capable of doing anything but hurting him. He still doesn’t flinch away though; in fact, his arm tightens around her as if trying to hold her to him. “I’m so sorry you had to see that--remember that. It’s bad enough you had to live it once…” 

“ _You’re_ sorry?” she asks, tilting her head up to try to see his face. The angle is awkward, but he’s already looking down at her, the intensity of his gaze almost intimidating but not quite. It’s kind of comforting, actually. “I’m the one who...who made you do that. I should never have asked that of you. I cannot believe that I did. I remember the look on your face when I asked you to...when I made you _swear_...” 

She trails off, as the memory comes back to her again, clearer than in the dream. _Swear to me on your mother_. She nearly gasps out loud as that gap fills in, at the horror of what she said to him. She knows how important his mother is to him, and is certain that version of her in the memory must have known even more, had four years of experience with Peter to know. She knew exactly what she was asking of him. 

“Peter,” she whispers, her voice clogged with shame and tears that are once again welling in the backs of her eyes. “How can you forgive me after I asked you to swear on your _mother_ that you’d kill me?” 

"Because I love--" he begins easily, then seems to realize what he's saying and cuts himself off. 

For a moment that aborted statement hangs in the air and it feels as though neither of them so much as breathes. Was that about to be past or present tense, she wonders? And how would it have ended? With _you_ or _her_? And most of all, has he stopped himself because he isn't ready to say it or because he thinks she is unprepared to hear it? He isn't wrong if it's the latter, and yet she feels disappointed all the same. So many dangerous things that she wants for herself since she met him. So many things that it is not her right to claim. 

Peter clears his throat, redirecting himself before she's had a chance to say anything or to second guess all of this enough to pull away. "Because I understand what it's like. To feel like the rest of the universe matters more than your own life does. And because I know that's a thing you feel too. It's one of the things I've always loved about you." He smiles sadly. "I mean, one of about a billion things, but the point still stands."

She tries to say _Oh_ , so she’ll at least say something and not just lie there, fighting back the longing in her chest that’s even harder to suppress than the tears she just can’t help. He said _loved_ but he also said _you_ , and there’s affection in his voice but also sadness. She doesn’t quite know what to make of it but she knows it fills her heart with a _want_ she hasn’t felt for anybody before in her entire life. 

“For the record, though,” he says after a few beats of silence. His voice has that faux-casual quality to it that she’s come to recognize quickly. “You matter much more than the universe. To me, anyway.” 

“Peter,” she whispers. She looks up at him because she can’t not. Despite his attempt at a casual tone, his face is anything but; he’s looking at her like...well, like she matters more to him than the universe. That was the word _you_ and present tense, but he can’t possibly mean what she desperately wants him to mean, no matter how pathetic it feels to admit that to herself. 

“That’s the only reason I agreed to--do that,” he continues. His fingers are playing almost absently along her shoulder, drawing patterns she’s too distracted to make out but that she finds comforting nonetheless. “Because I’d do anything you asked.”

“You’ve said you would do anything for -- me,” says Gamora, remembering that vividly. It had seemed innocuous enough then, if overwhelming to have something like that directed toward her. But now she realizes how dangerous that sort of love, that sort of trust can really be. It’s the reason she’s managed to hurt him the way she has. And yet here she is, still wanting it desperately to apply to _her_ , to _now._ As though she has learned nothing from any of this. “I didn’t realize the cost, Peter. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh,” he breathes, leaning down to brush his lips against her temple. It’s the same movement he’d made when he’d held her before, after the horror of the Xurcoils. Only it feels even better this time, because she’s not in shock, in pain. Well...not as much as she had been then. “No apologizing in the pillow fort.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “Is that another rule?”

“Definitely,” he says, combing his fingers through her hair in a way that makes her shiver pleasantly. She thinks about stopping him, then dismisses that idea immediately. “No apologizing, no beating yourself up, no feeling guilty. You can be scared, though. Or sad. Those are things the fort can help with.”

“I will try, then,” she says very quietly, struggling to make words come out when she’s simultaneously so relaxed and overwhelmed and...warm. She’s stopped shivering at some point and has only just now noticed. “For the fort.”

“Good,” Peter murmurs. The rumble of his chest when he speaks, his hand in her hair, his very _presence_ is so soothing that finally, she can’t keep the tears at bay anymore and a few of them slip out and onto his shirt. If he notices, which he probably does, he doesn’t comment, just continues the motions of his hand that are making it difficult for her to keep her eyes open. 

“Am I allowed to feel sleepy in the fort?” she asks casually. 

“Definitely,” he says. She can practically hear the smile in his voice. “In fact, you’re even allowed to _sleep_ in the fort. If you want to.”

There’s something vulnerable about his voice when he says it, like he’s preparing for a rejection. An instinctive part of her tells her that she _should_ reject that offer, that she doesn’t deserve his kindness or the comfort he’s providing. But a much larger part of her, the part of her that feels content pressed up against him, probably the same part of her that makes her abdomen feel so warm in his presence, doesn’t want to deny either one of them right now. 

“I do want to,” she says, allowing her eyes to slowly close, and stay that way. 

“So do I,” Peter whispers, his lips against the top of her head, his hand still in her hair, the soothing motions lulling her to sleep.

* * *

Gamora wakes disoriented.

True, she hasn’t exactly felt...well, _oriented_ since leaving her timeline. Which probably shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s not like she has any basis for comparison on...on losing _nine years._ She isn’t sure she can ever expect to feel oriented again. Perhaps that’s a side effect of being essentially an interloper in this timeline.

But this feels even more overwhelming than the usual. She has the immediate sense that she’s slept far longer than is typical, even here, where she’d already been sleeping more than she had since childhood. She also hasn’t had any dreams this time, which is equal parts pleasant and strange. 

When she opens her eyes, the world is mostly still dark, save for the stars projected onto the sheet above her head. For a moment she actually thinks she might be in space, and that thought brings a flash of -- something. She gets a distinct image of a ship exploding around her, the wash of impossibly cold vacuum, the certainty of death. But that makes no sense. She has never been in space, has she? The fact that she’s alive would seem to be proof.

Then she blinks and there it is again, only clearer this time: the distinct image of floating in space with no suit, no protection, except for a mask. Peter’s mask. She is still alive in this...vision? Hallucination? Memory, most likely, though she has no idea of when or _why_. But she knows with certainty now that she is alive because of Peter, and she can see him there with her, holding her, with even less protection than she has because he’s given up his mask. _Why?_ There is no way a Terran could survive in empty space like that. But she gets the distinct impression that he’s given _her_ his mask anyway. 

She gasps and sits up, suddenly snapping out of it when she realizes why she is more disoriented than usual. She’s not in the room where she’s been sleeping, but in the pillow fort in Peter’s room; the pillow fort where Peter had most certainly been when she fell asleep. He isn’t here now, though.

Had something happened in the middle of the night that she’d slept through? Some kind of emergency that had called Peter away? Surely he would have woken her for something like that, though. Wouldn’t he? 

Perhaps not, she thinks just as quickly then. Hasn’t she just remembered him giving away his mask in open space? Despite the fact that he, a Terran, would no doubt be even more susceptible to that kind of exposure than she would. Not that she would have lasted long regardless, but she doesn’t think he would have even had _minutes._ She will have to ask him about that memory when she gets the chance.

_If_ she gets the chance, she reminds herself, because she still doesn’t know where he is. For all she knows, the Sons of Thanos have boarded them overnight and killed everyone else on the ship. Really, for all she knows, Thanos himself has managed to come back from the dead -- or from another point in time -- and snapped everyone she’s ever cared about out of existence. 

She scrambles out of the fort and onto her feet before another possibility occurs to her: Maybe what happened had nothing to do with Thanos or the Sons or anyone else. Maybe what happened was simply that Peter had awoken in a far more figurative way, had realized that he’d made a mistake, treating her like she’s anyone he’s ever cared about. And would that be better or worse, she wonders? Would she prefer to have him dead or simply out of her reach?

That thought seems proof enough in itself. _Of course_ she will never be anyone he cares about, beyond the vestiges of memory. She is a monster.

Still, the possibility that he could be in danger -- or, the rational part of her brain suggests, that he could have simply gotten up for water or food or something else completely innocuous -- propels her out of the room. She makes sure to grab her sword before she heads out into the hall of the Quadrant; not that she’s ever far without it in the first place. 

The halls are quiet as far as she can see. There’s no sign of a battle or kidnappings, though there’s also no signs of the others. Though she realizes now that the ship’s day cycle has only just begun, and it’s unlikely that the others are awake. Drax, Mantis, and Groot at least would still be asleep, she’s sure. 

She heads for what she thinks is the most likely place for Peter to be first: the kitchen. She’s grateful that he did get to finally finish the tour of the ship so she knows where she’s going, because this ship is so much larger than the Benatar. 

There is still no sign of the others as she walks the halls, though she knows their sleeping quarters are rather spread out, so that is not unusual. She hears no voices or footsteps or other noises as she approaches the kitchen but she pokes her head in anyway: nothing. Though there are signs of activity, but not of anything like a battle; merely unwashed plates and silverware, signs of living that are pretty much _always_ there. 

All right, so not the kitchen then. She moves next to the common room where she'd played games with Groot. Nothing there either, unless she's counting some discarded vines. Which she most certainly is not. So not here either. She huffs a bit and kicks at one of the vines in frustration before moving on. She checks the gym next: empty. The nook with the interesting acoustics: empty. Target practice room: also empty. Then it occurs to her that she's going about this all wrong, that if there's anyone anywhere on this ship, at least one person should be manning the cockpit. 

She knows she's on the right track before she's even entered the room. She pauses in the hallway outside, listening to the sounds of heartbeats, of voices: Peter and Nebula talking to a third person who isn't physically present. It takes her an embarrassingly long moment to place that voice as Nova Prime. For an instant she feels absolutely dizzying relief at the fact that she's found them, that they are together and not kidnapped or in danger or worse. She glances down at herself and tries to smooth her tangled hair, her rumpled sleep clothes, in preparation for seeing them. 

And then she hears Peter say her name, only not to her because he doesn't know she's here. Not to her, _about_ her. 

“--but how can Gamora remember stuff she never actually lived through?” he’s asking, more than an edge of impatience in his voice. She peeks just slightly around the corner and can see that he’s got his arms crossed. Nebula looks stony-faced as usual, but much calmer than Peter. She can’t fully make out Nova Prime, only the edge of her face on the holo they’re talking to. 

“If she was brought from the past before any of that happened,” Peter continues, “how--?” 

“As I told you already, Mr. Quill,” Nova Prime interrupts him, sounding as professional as ever, in a tone that’s firm and leaves no room for argument. “We are looking into that, but we don’t have concrete answers yet; only unverified theories.”

“Sorry,” Peter says, contrite. Gamora sees him shift a little on his feet, but her own heart is racing so fast that she can’t even register anything about his expression. It’s all she can do to stay on her feet. “But...when she first told me about the memories, I kinda thought that maybe it meant the other Gamora, you know, the one that...I thought maybe it meant she could actually be alive--”

This time it’s Nebula who interrupts him. “God, don’t be an idiot, Quill,” she snaps. “How many times do I have to tell you it’s impossible--”

“I’m not saying I believe it!” Peter snaps right back. “Just that--”

But Gamora never gets to hear just what he was saying, because her body finally catches up with her brain and she whips around, her feet carrying her as fast as they possibly can away from there, away from that conversation, away from the foolish idea that she could ever be the person they all want her to be. She’s grateful that she has few possessions she actually cares about; less to pack, less time it will take her to get away from this family that can never actually be hers.


	19. Chapter 19

“Excuse me a moment,” Nebula says to Nova Prime, her tone far more patient and professional than Peter’s accustomed to hearing it, and _way_ more calm and collected than he’s currently feeling. 

Nebula pauses the holo transmission and turns to Peter. “You might want to go take care of that.”

He blinks at her, confused, wondering if she’s messing with him because she wants to have a private conversation with Nova Prime. “What?”

“Well,” says Nebula, “my sister was standing in the hall a few seconds ago. Then her heart rate and breathing increased dramatically and she took off at a very fast pace. So...you should probably go take care of that.”

“ _What_?” he asks, looking between her and the hall, having trouble processing what she’s just said. “She was--here? Why didn’t you say something before?” 

“I assumed she would announce herself if she wanted her presence known,” Nebula says, uncaring about his confusion, but with a real edge of concern for her sister. “But you’ve obviously gone and upset her by being a moron, so _go take care of that_.” 

“I-- _fuck_ ,” Peter curses, taking off at a run. His mind is racing, unsure what exactly would have upset her. Perhaps just that they were talking about her with Nova Prime without her knowing? But no, Nebula had said that Gamora knew she had contacted Nova Prime about her memories. Although she might have expected to be included on future calls. But still, he doesn’t think that would upset her this much. 

He heads straight for the room she’s been staying in, because he doubts she’d have gone back to his if she’s upset with him, though he checks every room he passes on the way just in case. There’s no sign of her in any of them, not even the gym, the place he figures she’s second most likely to be. 

The door of her room is closed when he gets there, so he knocks. There’s no answer, so he knocks again, his own heart speeding up now. “Gamora?” he calls when there’s still no response. 

“What?” she snaps from inside. He winces. Definitely mad. 

“Um,” says Peter, wracking his brain again for anything that he could have done to upset her this way. 

Is it possible that she’s angry about the things he said to her last night? He _had_ allowed himself to get carried away, had very nearly told her he loves her, which makes him flush even now as he remembers that lapse. But she hadn’t seemed upset then -- about that near-confession or anything else. Maybe she’s angry that he’d left her alone, then? Which hadn’t been his favorite thing to do, but she’d been deep asleep at the time of this scheduled call and he _knows_ how difficult that is for her to achieve. So he’s probably not going to figure this out, and she certainly isn’t volunteering anything from the other side of the door. 

“Are you okay?” he tries. 

“Fine,” she calls back in that same clipped tone. She doesn’t invite him in, doesn’t offer anything else. Doesn’t even come to the door and yell in his face, which would kind of be a relief at this point.

“Can I come in?” he tries, since clearly he’s going to have to take his own initiative here.

After a few seconds go by and she doesn’t answer, he knocks again and repeats himself. “Gamora? Can I come in, please? I wanna talk to you.” 

Still, she ignores him, but he can hear the sounds of her moving around inside, so he knows she’s at least physically okay. She must be _really_ upset to be ignoring him like this, though. She’s only ever gotten like this a few times through all the years he’s known her, and it’s always been because she was truly angry. 

His worry skyrockets. What the hell could be that bad about what he said? He doesn’t even know what part she might have overheard, can hardly remember what he said. 

“Gamora?” he repeats yet again with another knock. He tries to keep his voice level. “If you don’t answer, I’m just gonna come in, okay?” 

A few more moments pass with no answer, but still with the sounds of movement from inside, so he says, “Okay, I’m coming in.” He braces himself and opens the door, relieved that it’s not locked. But his relief is extremely short-lived, because the sight that greets him makes both him and his heart pause. 

There’s a small bag open on the bed, half full of various clothing items, and Gamora is currently marching determinedly around the room, gathering more things to put inside it. She’s _packing_. 

"What are you doing?" he asks, the words spilling out in pure reflex, like flinching away from a blow. He hears his own voice, loud and high with panic.

She pauses just long enough to turn and glare daggers at him over her shoulder. Her eyes are cold, almost unrecognizable. Even on the battlefield, when everything had been new and strange to her, they'd been softer. "What does it look like?"

He swallows, his throat so tight that it's hard to even get a breath in, let alone talk. Maybe he's allergic to upsetting Gamora. "It looks like you're packing."

"Oh so you _do_ have at least one functional brain cell," she says acidly, refusing to volunteer any more information as she folds a shirt into a tiny ball before putting it in the bag. 

"Are you...um...going on a trip?" he asks, though of course he knows exactly what she's doing, exactly what this means. He just can't bring himself to even think the words. 

She glares at him disdainfully. “There goes that brain cell, huh?”

He recoils, stung and even more concerned. Gamora is usually hyper-concerned about hurting the people she cares about, but here she is acting as though she _wants_ to do it.

He has to work to take a calming breath, and in that brief second she’s managed to put two more shirts in her bag. “Gamora-- _why?_ ” he manages to ask. She doesn’t respond, so he continues, “C’mon, talk to me if you’re upset! You don’t have to leave, we can work out whatever this is!” 

“Clearly I do,” she says coldly, ignoring that last part. 

“What are you talking about?” Peter asks, barely refraining from pulling his own hair out in a combination of frustration and panic. “Is this because me and Nebula were talking to Nova Prime?” 

She doesn’t respond to that, but the next thing she puts into the bag gets slammed in so hard that it rattles the bed, so he figures the answer is yes; though he pretty much already knew that. 

“Hey, I’m sorry we didn’t include you on that call,” he says. He’s basically following her around the tiny room now as she continues grabbing clothes and determinedly ignoring him. “But we just want to help you! We wanna figure out what’s going on!” 

"Yes," she snaps, picking up a spare boot and hurling it at the bag with enough force that it bounces back out, landing on the other side of the bed. She growls in frustration, but doesn't immediately go to get it. Instead she turns back to Peter, the rage still smoldering in her gaze. But there's something else, too -- fear and...maybe sadness? "You want to _help_ me just like Thanos did."

" _What_?!" Peter gapes at her, feeling sick. It feels like he's the one who's out of his time, or maybe like he's been abducted all over again, found himself in some bizarro reality where he's guilty of some heinous crime. Abruptly he wonders if maybe she's gotten another memory back -- but how would that explain this even so? She's already remembered the worst of his failures, or so he's thought. "Gamora, I hated that purple asshole more than anyone did! Well, okay, probably not more than you or Nebula but definitely more than anyone else so that's like...more than ninety nine point nine nine nine nine ni--"

"Shut up," she interrupts coldly, moving past him to grab the boot off the floor. 

Glancing around, Peter realizes with horror that she's finished packing the few things she owns, that when she puts in the boot, all that will be left is to close up the bag and walk out the door. Panic flaring even more, he scrambles around the bed to where the bag rests, picks it up, and dumps the contents. 

“Peter!” she snaps, sounding if possible angrier than before. She goes to grab the bag back from him but he’s already holding it high above his head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” 

“I’m trying to stop you from doing something stupid!” he snaps right back. “Just because you’re pissed at me doesn’t mean you have to leave!” 

“Give me my bag back,” she says, her voice practically a growl. Now that she’s standing so close, he can truly see the pain in her eyes. Gamora often disguises pain or sadness as anger, has always felt safer with that emotion than other more vulnerable ones. She’d gotten better about it as the years went on, but of course now… 

“If I do, will you please _talk_ to me?” he begs. 

She ignores him yet again, which is basically an answer, and jumps slightly to grab the bag. He doesn’t struggle, just resignedly lets her take it. Playing keep away with her possessions is not the way to help calm her. 

As soon as she gets the bag back, she immediately starts re-packing it. “Gamora,” he pleads. “Is this because you remembered something else? Because if it was something about me—“ 

“It’s not about those damn memories!” Gamora yells, just the slightest wobble detectable in her voice. Her hands are clenched into fists, her face tense; he’s on the right track, then. 

"Then what?" asks Peter. He moves so that he's standing in front of some of the stuff he dumped, using the bulk of his body to block her so that she can't get past to retrieve it. Sure, she could shove him to the side or deck him or pick him up and throw him over her shoulder if she wanted to, but he's gambling on her avoidance. "Was it-- something about last night? Was that -- too much?"

"What?" she asks, her voice wobbling a bit more. She doesn't break, though, instead doubles down on the cruelty. "What, your stupid infantile tent?"

"Hey," he says, equal parts stung and even more afraid. Gamora would never try to intentionally hurt him unless -- unless -- He really can't come up with anything unless she really _is_ a fundamentally different person. And then, with that thought, it clicks. "Wait. Is this because I said that I thought -- Because I thought the memories might be like what happened to Nebula when there were two of her in the same timeline?"

Gamora pauses just like that, stops packing and puts her hands on her hips. She doesn't quite relent, though, doesn't outright admit that he's figured it out. Instead she continues to goad. "You know what I don't understand? Why pretend to be nice to me at all? Why give me ippufruit and--and videogames and that stupid, childish fort?"

"It's not childish," says Peter, at a loss for other words. 

She rolls her eyes. "Why go to all that trouble convincing me that I could have -- that I could _be_ her when all this time, you were hoping for the moment where you wouldn't need me anymore?"

"Gamora--" he stammers, feeling like he might be sick. 

" _You did this to me_ ," she hisses, lifting the hem of her shirt in a rush, her voice breaking on the last few words. Her voice is quieter than before, like she can’t make it any louder.There’s more pain on her face than anger now. "And this whole time all you really wanted was _her._ I am the fool here. I let you trick me just as he did."

In all his panic and confusion and concern, it takes him a split second to understand what she’s talking about. But then he looks down at her abdomen, at what she’s just revealed, and he lets out a stuttering gasp. There, peeking out over the top of her pants, is the silver blush that’s meant so much to him ever since he found out what it means: it means attraction, it means commitment, it means viewing somebody as a potential life partner. It means _love_. 

“Gamora--” he breathes, and this time he cuts himself off because he’s too choked up to manage any other words right now. His heart feels like it’s caught in his throat, but in a good way. There are already tears gathering at the back of his eyes and he doesn’t try to fight them. All this time, he’s been trying to get her to remember their relationship, to get her memories back so she’ll love him again, but it never occurred to him that he doesn’t _have to_. 

He shakes his head, so completely overcome that it takes everything he has to stay standing and to get words out when he looks at her face again. She’s still glaring at him, but he can see the tears in her own eyes too, the aching vulnerability and embarrassment. 

“I’m the fool, Gamora,” he says, then chokes again. “I--” 

His legs are too weak, he’s feeling too many things to stay upright, so he just lets himself sink down to his knees in front of her, utterly overwhelmed. 

Gamora has a clear path to walk right past him now, to pick up her things, put them into her bag, and vanish entirely from his life. He has no will left to stop her if that's what she wants...and yet she doesn't do it. She just stands there, her hands shaking where they hold her shirt, tears silently making their way down both cheeks. 

Peter feels as though his lungs stop, as though he can barely draw breath. He's reminded, strangely, of those moments in space just outside of Knowhere when he'd taken off his mask to give it to her; when it had been all he could do to offer his very _life_ for hers. He reaches up with his own trembling fingers and rests them lightly against her abdomen, traces the edge of the silver with every ounce of the reverence that he feels so utterly unable to express in words. She inhales sharply and shudders at his touch, but makes no move to pull away or stop him. 

"When?" he manages to whisper finally. "Gamora, when did this -- Did you wake up this morning and--"

"No," she interrupts, her voice rough with her own tears, but assured all the same. "No, it was -- after the monkeys attacked us on Liri IV. That night I dressed your wounds."

It takes a second for those words to sink in, to register how much longer that's been, again, than he's ever considered. And then it's all he can do to wrap his arms around her legs, bury his face in the spot where she is silver for him, and sob. 

She doesn’t do anything at first, and he’s too overcome to look up at her expression to see whether she’s disgusted by him right now. But after a few seconds, and a few more shaky sobs, he feels her hands come up to rest on his head. Then, slowly, she starts to stroke his hair soothingly, even though her hands are still shaking.

That just makes him cry harder, but it’s a release; he thought he’d lost her, or at least lost her as that most important part of his life, but now here on her abdomen is the evidence that he can get her back, or that maybe she was never really gone at all.

But then he remembers that he might _still_ lose her, and he’s able to muster the strength to tilt his head and look up at her. He finds her looking down at him, tears still on her cheeks and shining in her eyes. 

“Gamora,” he says, voice scarcely more than a ragged breath. “Were you leaving because you thought I didn’t love you back?” 

“You—you don’t,” she chokes out, furiously attempting to blink back tears that are still falling. “You just love—you just want _her_.” 

“You _are her_ ,” he says, and he knows it with absolute certainty as he says the words aloud. No doubts, no guilt about it, only truth. He brings his hands back up to rest on her hips, letting both thumbs sweep over the edges of the silver there and feeling how she shudders again under his touch. He leans in again, pressing a soft, reverent kiss to the skin of her abdomen just below her navel. “ _You_ are her.”

It takes her a moment, but she rearranges her face back into a mask of skepticism, doubt like a shield she’s stubbornly holding in front of all her most vulnerable places. And how can he blame her, given the circumstances?

“Then why even talk about there being another Gamora?” she asks. “ _Two_ Gamoras? You loved her. You _love_ her.”

Peter takes a long, shaky breath and decides that he has to be honest, _wholly_ honest, that there is no other choice here. “I did. I do. Because it’s -- It’s _all you._ It’s always been you.”

She crosses her arms, studying him. “So what you are saying is that if, for the sake of argument, you could bring the Gamora who died for the Soul Stone back right now...You would love both of us equally?”

He blinks, the ease of his answer surprising him. “Well yeah.”

She looks taken aback, shakes her head. “I don’t -- know what to do with that. Any of that.”

“You don’t have to do anything with it,” he says, trying to restrain himself from coming on too strong and intimidating her; but then again, apparently he hasn’t been coming on strong _enough_ if she was so sure he didn’t love her she was willing to run away because of it. 

So he takes a breath and pulls his head away from her abdomen but stays just an inch away from it. Her shirt is rucked up enough that he can still see the edge of the silver, but he focuses on her face, on the pain and longing there. The desire to believe him is plain on her face, but so is the fear.

“I love you,” he says as firmly as he can while his voice is still ragged with tears. She bites her lip, obviously still trying to hold back tears of her own, maybe even an audible sob. “And you don’t have to...to do anything with that if you don’t want to, or if you’re not ready. Just--just please don’t leave.” 

“I want to believe you,” she chokes out. Her breath hitches and her arms fall away from her chest. Desperately, he reaches up and takes one hand in his, happy when she lets him. 

“Gamora, please,” he says. She looks down at their joined hands, held next to his head, and he rubs the back of hers with his thumb. “If I could turn silver with love, my whole body would be glowing for you. There’s only one you, and I _know_ that.” 

"What if there isn't?" she insists, her voice still shaky, possibly the most unsure he's ever heard her, yet still desperate to take him at his word. "All this talk of timelines and alternate timelines, and -- I _saw_ two Nebulas. Whether you want to say it was two different or two of the same -- they were there. What if there are -- an _infinite_ number of us, an infinite number of possible timelines?"

Peter considers that, which kind of makes his head hurt, but also doesn't change anything about the reality he's living right here and now. It doesn't change anything about the way he feels. "Well -- then I guess there'd be infinite Peters loving you, because I sure as hell know that I would every single time." 

So much for the not coming on too strong thing. Oh well. It's not like that's ever really been his style. 

"Peter," she says in a very small voice, her face crumpling as she starts to cry all over again. "Peter, _why_? Gods, look what I've done to you."

“What are you talking about?” he asks, his brain way too scattered to parse what she means. But then she gestures helplessly to him and he very nearly laughs. He _does_ smile, just a little, unable to help adding levity to one of the most emotionally heavy conversations of his life. “What? That I’m a mess?” 

“No,” she starts to say, but then she gestures to him again and shrugs as if to say _Kinda, though_. 

“It’s okay,” Peter says. He squeezes her hand again. “I know I’m a mess. But I’m your mess. In every universe, in any timeline, no matter what. Because you are the most amazing, perfect, wonderful woman in every universe. Even if you don’t see that yet, I do.”

“Peter--” she chokes, crying too hard to continue. Her face is twisted in pain and he knows she doesn’t believe him; she never did, but she got closer over the years. He’ll gladly spend his entire life convincing her. 

“It’s true,” he says gently. He wants so badly to hold her, to comfort her, but he’s not sure how receptive she would be to that right now, only minutes after having packed her stuff to run away. He’s also not sure he can stand without collapsing all over again right now, so he tugs her hand very lightly and says, “C’mere?” 

“No,” says Gamora, though not unkindly. She tugs his hand in the other direction. “ _You_ come _here._ ”

She has a point: They’ve both spent plenty of time sitting (or lying, in the case of a pillow fort) on the floor in their lives, but...well, he’s just been trying to convince her he’s not too much of a mess, that she hasn’t hurt him irreparably. So he lets her pull him to his feet instead of pulling her down with him. It turns out that makes his head swim, though, the aftermath of panic leaving him shaky and dizzy as it always does. 

“How ‘bout this,” he says, sinking down on the edge of the bed and holding out an arm, gently tugging on the hand that he’s still holding.

She nods, and sinks down into his lap, burying her face against his shoulder and holding on tightly like she wasn’t about to walk right out of his life just a few short minutes ago. Peter wraps his arms around her just as tightly and rests his cheek against her hair, allowing himself to finally exhale the breath it feels like he’s been holding from the second he discovered her in here. No, more than that. Since he found her in that Xandarian bunker? Since he’d seen her across the battlefield on Earth?

They sit like that for a long time. He doesn’t know exactly how long, but he knows the tears on his cheeks have finally started to dry, and his thigh has gotten slightly numb from Gamora sitting on it and neither of them moving. He also knows he has no desire to move, ever, even if it makes his leg fall off. 

Gamora has mostly stopped crying, he’s pretty sure, though he still feels the occasional tear drop onto his shoulder. He’s loosened his grip very slightly so he can rub her back. 

“Does this mean you’ll stay?” he whispers eventually. Loath though he is to break the moment, he has to be certain she’s not going to up and fly away in a panic. 

“Yes,” she says quietly. Her breath brushes the skin of his neck and he feels the last of the tension he’s been holding in his shoulders relax. 

Even so, he can sense an unspoken _but…_ in her tone and tries not to let that tension return. She’s silver, he reminds himself, and that means she loves him. No matter what else happens, they can work through it as long as she loves him. 

“What’s wrong?” he prompts, when she doesn’t offer up any more information. 

“Nothing,” she says, but then she sighs, and moves her head just enough so she can speak more clearly, not muffled against his skin. His neck feels colder. “It’s just… Even if there is only one me, and I have some memories from...you know… I am still different. I can’t just jump into the relationship you had with the me I don’t remember being.” 

“What?” he says in shock. He’s been expecting so much worse -- some reason why every bit of hope is going to be snatched away from them again, some horror that they can’t possibly fight -- that her answer almost feels like a reprieve. As nice as it might be to fall back into exactly the way things were before, as much as he might want it all back -- he knows that’s not realistic either. That _would_ be like trying for a cheap replacement. That would also be throwing away all of the progress they’ve made, all of the fragile, new memories they’re forming. “Gamora, you think that’s what I want?”

She shrugs. “Don’t you? You’ve been showing me all of the things we used to have. Doing what you can to try and trigger memories.”

“Well yeah,” says Peter, because he can’t deny it, which means he also can’t deny how confusing this whole thing must seem from her perspective. “I do want you to know what we had. I want you to -- Wait, do _you_ want those memories back?” It hasn’t occurred to him to ask until now, but of course it should be her decision. If she doesn’t, then...well, then he’s just going to have to learn to live with that, and trust that her being silver _now_ will be enough to make something new.

“I don’t know,” she says, sounding confused, and distressed about her own confusion. “I don’t… _not_ want them. I would like to know the things I had...what we had.”

“But?” Peter prompts, again hearing that word lingering in her tone. 

“But I don’t want them to alter me,” she says quietly. “To change my brain. Or to change me overnight.” 

“That’s not what I want either,” he assures her, because that’s the last thing he wants, despite his brief fantasies of everything going back to the way it used to be. He would never want to change a thing about Gamora. “They wouldn’t. They couldn’t. Do you feel changed from remembering the stuff you already did?” 

“I suppose not,” she says. Her fingers are playing absently with a spot on his shirt and he never wants her to stop. “I feel… Like I know myself a little better from it. And you. And I appreciate you even more.” 

“Really?” he asks, surprised by that response. Though he knows she is grateful that he agreed to her request to kill her, he’s surprised she could still appreciate him for failing on what was basically, at the time, her dying wish. Though perhaps that’s not the memory she’s talking about? Has she gotten even more since then? 

Apparently it is, though, because she says, “Yes. I appreciate that you...loved me enough to promise me that, and to try to do it. And that you forgave me for asking it of you.” 

“Of course I did,” he says earnestly. 

Her hair is tangled, either from her restless night -- though she’d seemed to sleep well enough in the pillow fort, as far as he could tell -- or from her frantic morning of packing. Her brush is still packed up but that doesn’t matter, because he’s more than accustomed to combing it out with his fingers. He starts doing that now, carefully, and feels her shift ever so slightly closer to him. “You know, you’ve forgiven me for things too. And you’ve done things for me that were -- amazing. Selfless.”

She rests her head on his shoulder again so he can’t quite see her face, but he can hear the curious frown in her voice. “Like what?”

“Well…” He thinks for a minute, his head still kind of spinning, which makes it hard to decide where to start. Not because he’s at a loss for examples, but because there are so very many. “You’ve forgiven me for failing to kill you like I said I would. Or -- or at least I think you have?”

“That was not in your control,” says Gamora. “How could I blame you for the actions of my -- of Thanos?”

He shrugs. “Well, I mean, you _could,_ technically.” He still blames himself for sure. “But okay, another example. Remember how I told you about using the Power Stone to beat Ronan? You were the first one who took my hand. You kept it from ripping me apart, even though you had no way to know that it wouldn’t just kill you too.”

“I am sure anyone would have done the same,” she says, unsurprisingly reluctant to admit anything good about herself. It’s okay, Peter figures; they’ll work on it again. 

“I’m sure they wouldn’t have,” he tells her. “And they didn’t; you did.”

Clearly unable to dispute that, she doesn’t respond, and he takes that as a small victory; especially when she asks in a quiet voice, “Was there anything else?”

“Tons of stuff!” he says immediately, encouraged. “Literally so much. Like dozens of things every day. But okay, focusing on the big stuff…” He bites his lip at the example that suddenly comes to mind. It’s not his favorite topic, but it’s something she should probably know about anyway. “I haven’t told you much about my--father, have I?”

“Yondu?” she questions, and he nearly laughs. 

“No, well--not that one,” he says. “My...the other one.”

“Oh,” she says softly. “No. You told me he was not good.” Her hand that had been playing with his shirt, plucking at it and drawing patterns along it, starts to stroke very gently, trying to comfort him. It works, and he smiles again. 

“Yeah, he was pretty evil,” Peter says. “Long story super short, he wanted to destroy the whole universe. You know, the usual bad guy stuff. He was gonna destroy all of you, and me, and…” He trails off, thinking of his Walkman. It’s still difficult for him to talk about it. He still feels an emptiness at his hip where it used to sit, even after all these years. 

“And?” Gamora prompts, looking up at him again. Her voice is soft and gentle, full of warmth. _Hers._ Nothing at all like the icy cruel edge she’d had earlier, the anger she’d used to mask her fear and hurt. 

He sighs. “And, um. Remember I told you I had another music player before this one?”

She nods, surprising him a little with the ease of it, though he probably should have expected that she would. 

“It was a gift from my mother,” he continues. “One of the only things I had from her, that made me feel like I still had -- you know, a part of her with me.”

“I often wished for something like that from my own parents,” Gamora says quietly. 

“I know,” he breathes, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and letting that ground him before he continues. “Well, my father -- His name was Ego, if you can believe it. And it sure as hell fit, because he wanted to turn the entire rest of the galaxy into an extension of himself. _Literally._ ” He swallows, feeling a bit nauseated. It’s been a minute since he’s rehashed this particular trauma, but it turns out adding all the recent shit doesn’t actually make it hurt any less. “Well he wanted me to help him with that, and to get me to cooperate, I guess, or just because he was mad that I wasn’t, he -- He took the player and um -- He crushed it.”

“What?” Gamora gasps, and lifts her head to look at him. 

She already looks horrified, so he decides to just bite the bullet and tell her the rest. “He also told me he killed my mother, so…” He trails off, swallowing down the lump in his throat. He doesn’t want to cry about this for the billionth time, not right now, but his emotions are already so close to the surface, and Gamora is looking at him with so much horror and anger and compassion. 

“He is lucky he is already dead,” she growls fiercely, and Peter actually smiles, nearly laughs; that’s exactly what she’d said the first time he told her. 

“Yeah, well,” he says, then can’t say anything else because Gamora is turning her head carefully, cautiously. She tentatively places a kiss on his clothed shoulder, for the first time _she_ would remember, and he chokes on a sob. God, he loves her so much. 

Then she hugs him again, and he tightens his arms around her and lets himself cry. “That wasn’t even the point of this story, you know,” he says, sniffling. 

“Oh?” she says, but she doesn’t move her arms from around him, doesn’t stop holding him to her tightly. He’s supposed to be comforting _her_ right now, and yet here she is, comforting him instead. Not like it’s the first time...Or even, like, the hundredth time. 

"No," he says, though now he kind of wishes he hadn't brought it up, because here she is being so...so _herself_ and he's about to make himself out to be an ass. What if she doesn't forgive him this time despite having done it before? But that's nonsense and disproving it actually was the literal point of bringing it up. "So um…So it turns out you have awesome instincts when it comes to...well everything, actually, but in this case when it comes to people being evil assholes."

"Well," she says darkly, "I did have my senses honed by the best of the best in evil assholes."

Peter makes a face, but decides not to get sidetracked by his hatred for Thanos right now. One evil demigod is enough per conversation. "That’s true. So anyway, you figured out Ego was evil before I did. Like, way before. Instead of paying attention, I was all caught up in the idea of finally having the dad I'd always wanted."

“That is understandable,” Gamora says, already seeming willing to forgive him before she’s even heard the whole story. 

“I still should’ve listened to you,” he says regretfully. “You tried to warn me that he was evil, and the evidence was all right there in my face, but I was a total asshole about it. I accused you of being jealous, of wanting me to be weak. We fought, and you left the room, and Ego nearly destroyed the whole universe because I was too dumb to listen to you. But you forgave me. And came to save me.” 

“Of course I forgave you,” she says like it’s a given; which to her, it probably is, like it is that he would forgive her anything. “If I thought I had the chance to have an actual father again…” 

“You don’t remember the stuff I said to you,” he says sadly, regretful of it even now. 

“Well, clearly it didn’t matter,” Gamora points out. “Since I forgave you when I did.” 

He blinks. "That simple?"

She considers for a moment, then shrugs. "What if it is? What if I want it to be? My whole life, I have denied myself the most basic things I wanted. Because I knew _he_ would use them to punish me. But -- as you have said so many times, he is dead. So if I want to forgive you for things, why not? If I want to sleep in a pillow fort, why not? If I want -- more than just those things, why not? Is there a reason why it can't be that simple?"

“No,” he says, smiling a little tearfully. “No reason at all.” It _should_ be that simple, though it hasn’t always been for her. The first time it was so difficult for her to allow herself to have things, more than just the basic necessities. He thinks it’s not exactly easy for her now, either, but perhaps she is re-learning quicker this time to let herself have what she wants, to do what she wants, since Thanos is actually out of the picture. 

She nods against him just once, determined, and he smiles a little wider. 

“So, what do you want now, then?” he asks. He is going to help her get it, whatever it is; he’ll make it as simple as possible. 

She’s quiet for a beat, a thoughtful silence. “I want to belong here,” she says at last, slowly. She voices it quietly, but with that same determined edge in her tone that means she is fighting past her own insecurities. “Again. And to...be with you. But…” 

“But what?” he prompts, even though that word keeps making his heart pick up. Perhaps Gamora hears it -- no, Gamora definitely hears it -- because she starts rubbing his side soothingly. 

“When we…” she starts, but trails off, apparently having trouble articulating it. “The first time, how long did it take for us to…”

“Have sex?” Peter asks bluntly. 

“No,” she says with a sigh. He can see a dark green blush rising on her visible cheek. “Well, yes, but also--everything else, too.” 

“Um…” He considers, struggling again with how to describe something so intimately familiar to him and yet so completely foreign to her. “Well...Turns out, we were never that great at expressing our feelings.”

She raises an eyebrow, the familiar wry humor of the gesture making his heart ache and leap all at once. “Wow, really?”

“Yeah, really.” He offers her a weak smile. “Also...Okay, so I told you I grew up with the Ravagers, right?” He waits for her to nod before continuing. “So they’re not...you know...the most into, like, monogamous relationships. Before I had this family, I was really lonely a lot of the time, and I didn’t know what to do about it so I kinda...well, I ended up places like Contraxia a lot. And with a lot of people that I never saw again after one night.” Peter feels his own cheeks grow hot as he looks at her face again, prepares to take in her reaction. They’ve just talked about her willingness to forgive him for past mistakes, but it feels really freakin’ _weird_ to spell out his own shortcomings like this.

“Oh,” she says simply, but she looks taken aback. She doesn’t volunteer anything else.

Peter bites his lip and swallows. “Is that...a problem for you? I mean, it was -- a really, _really_ long time ago now. Before I was ever with you. But I feel like -- you know, you should know because it was a thing that worried you when we got together the first time. You thought that I might just want -- That I might not -- be serious.”

Gamora shakes her head. “No. No, I don’t think it sounds as though there’s anything to forgive, it’s just -- hard for me to imagine you that way. You are the most devoted person I have ever met, Peter.”

“Oh,” he says with a pleased smile. Something in his chest warms at the compliment, the way it often does when Gamora says nice things about him. “Well, to you, yeah.”

“And to this team,” she says firmly. “To anyone you consider family.”

He blushes but his smile widens. “Thanks,” he says, both for the compliment and for understanding his past so easily. But this is supposed to be about _her_ , no matter how much he likes to hear her praise. “You are too, you know.” 

She makes a noncommittal noise and buries her face further in his neck. She’ll get better at accepting nice things too, he knows, though right now she changes the subject -- or rather, steers it back. “So, I gather that means we took things slowly the first time? If we were bad at admitting feelings.” 

“Well, sorta,” Peter says thoughtfully. “We took the beginning part slow...like, the part up until we admitted the feelings. We danced and stuff sometimes, and Rocket says we stared at each other _moonily_ all the time.” 

“Moonily?” Gamora repeats, looking up at him with her brow furrowed. 

“Like ‘dast idiots who’ve never seen another person before,’ according to Rocket,” Peter says with a shrug, but also a smile. “He’s probably right.” He’s pretty sure he still looks at her like that, actually. 

“But it was slow?” Gamora asks again. 

“Yeah, that part,” he says. “It was kind of...obvious, looking back, but it was all unspoken. Up until Ego.” 

"Unspoken like this?" asks Gamora, gesturing to her abdomen. She doesn't lift her shirt again, but he knows what she means. 

Peter can't help smiling a bit, though he's surprised by that response. Up until right this minute he'd been thinking how different this has all been over the past few weeks. But...his own grief and guilt aside, has it really? If he allows himself to really consider it, Gamora has been remarkably similar to the first time they got to know one another. She's scared and confused, sure, the ghost of Thanos still large in her mind. But she's also curious and compassionate and increasingly open, seeking him out more and more. She might have even given him some looks that could be considered moony. And she's silver…

"Yeah," he breathes, resting his hand over hers for a moment very lightly. "Yeah, god, exactly like that."

She nods thoughtfully. "But then -- after Ego, you told me how you felt?"

Peter blinks, taken aback now by that assumption. He's so used to thinking about it the other way around, but of course it makes sense given the mixed messages he's been sending her. "No um -- Actually you did. I was -- not subtle."

“What do you mean?” she asks, obviously confused because he’s doing a pretty shit job of explaining this. He sighs; apparently he’s gonna have to explain the entirety of how dumb he was during all that. 

“I mean, I _kinda_ told you how I felt,” he says, recalling their dance and his terrible wording. “I used some Earth references that you didn’t understand. Also earlier, when we first met Mantis she didn’t really understand subtlety either, and she used her powers on me in front of you and told everyone that I loved you.” 

“That sounds...invasive,” Gamora says, tilting her head to look at him with concern. “And unkind towards you.” 

“She just didn’t understand that it wasn’t something she should share,” Peter says. He’d been beyond embarrassed at the time, but looking back now, it’s mostly just amusing. “And I’m pretty sure you could already tell.” 

“But you couldn’t tell I felt the same?” she asks, though it’s only half a question. 

“Well, I hoped,” he admits. “Sometimes I was sure you did. Other times I was sure you didn’t and I was just reading into things because it was what I wanted to see.” 

“It’s still hard for me to imagine that you _did_ feel that way,” she admits. “That you -- do.”

“But _you_ do,” says Peter, then immediately feels the insecurity creeping back up in the pit of his stomach. “Right?”

“I am silver,” she reminds him, which is maybe not the most explicit confession of love she could have made, but...well, what is he really expecting? They’ve literally just established how difficult it is for them to talk about these kinds of feelings. She’s only had half as much time as before, and so much extra baggage.

“Right,” he says. “Right.” He clears his throat. “So...yeah, it took us longer to like...establish this. Before. And for you to believe that you could have it, or at least that’s what you told me.”

She nods. “It’s also hard for me to believe that I could have allowed myself to have it at all, with Thanos still alive. It seems like it was a disastrous decision, actually.”

“I wouldn’t trade it for the whole universe,” says Peter. “Even if we’d never gotten another -- Even if we’d never gotten _this_ chance. If it had ended with Thanos.”

“Really?” she asks, so quietly that he nearly doesn’t hear her. 

“Yeah,” he says, gentle but firm in his conviction. “You’re worth everything to me, Gamora. Always have been, always will be. You didn’t always understand why...But it’s always been true.” 

“Oh,” she says, even quieter. She doesn’t say anything else, but Peter’s not _too_ concerned about that. She’s likely just overwhelmed; in reality, she _never_ really understood why he loves her so much, even after four years. 

Though he does wonder about that whole _coming on too strong_ thing again. He knows she’s not really there yet, where he is, despite being silver, but he can be patient. He can do anything for her. 

He’s not surprised when, the next time she speaks after a few moments, it’s a sort of subject change, though again she’s steering them back to the original question. “What do you mean we did _that_ part slowly?” 

“Oh, right,” he says, then clears his throat. He had kind of forgotten that was the point. “So, uh, after we actually admitted our feelings, mostly, we kinda jumped into the rest of it pretty quickly.” 

“What do you mean, the rest of it?” she asks. 

"Uh," says Peter, suddenly having trouble putting it into words again. He remembers vividly, of course, and it's not like he regrets or is ashamed of any part of it. But he still feels a flush rising in his cheeks as he thinks about articulating it to her now. "Well like...sharing a room? We uh -- We never had separate quarters on this ship. And um -- We talked about our feelings a lot once we started doing it. Oh, also kissing. We did a lot of kissing right after the first time too."

When she looks up at him again there's a definite uncertainty in her gaze, though he's pretty sure it's more shyness than reluctance. But also, the corners of her lips are twitching, the familiar expression that means she's amused by something but doesn't want to admit it. "And sex?"

"Oh yeah!" he says quickly. "That totally minor detail. We had sex...like...the same night we first talked about our feelings. And then we had it a lot more because it turns out we're really good at it."

She flushes again, ducking her head. "I am -- not ready to do that again, Peter. Even though we are talking about our feelings now. Not even close."

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says gently. He tentatively rests his hand on the back of her head, and when she doesn’t move, he starts stroking her hair in the way she always finds most soothing. She relaxes against him where she’d tensed up. “I’m not expecting that, ‘Mora, I swear. I wasn’t expecting it then, either. It just kinda happened. But hey! Just because we didn’t exactly go slow the first time, doesn’t mean we can’t this time!” 

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” she says, in a small voice that makes a fist clench around his heart. 

“Baby,” he says, the pet name slipping out as usual. He doesn’t even consider trying to take it back, though. “You could never. I just want to be with you. In whatever way you want.” 

“Okay,” she murmurs. Her hold tightens on him a little. “I like this.” 

“Me too,” he says. He kisses the top of her head and holds her closer in return. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. I don’t care if you never wanna have sex, as long as we get to do this.” 

“I am not saying never,” she says, and he can’t help but smile at how quickly she responded. 

“Well, that’s awesome,” he says, though he had been completely serious. He’d told her the same thing the first time, and he’d meant it then too. “Because we are super good at it. Like, ridiculously good.” 

“Peter,” she says softly, looking away and flushing even deeper. 

He remembers belatedly how she’d been concerned before, worried that he’d had more sexual experience than she did. She’d been intimidated the first time by his history of messing around, which had surprised him to learn -- He’d been fairly certain that she was just grossed out by that whole thing, but apparently not. And if she’d been intimidated then...well, he can only imagine how weird it would be to learn that someone else knew every intimate detail of his sexual performance, his preferences better than he did. ...well, weird and kind of hot, actually. But to Gamora it’s probably just weird.

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “Sorry, I’m -- kind of an idiot. But you knew that.”

“I didn’t say that,” says Gamora, an edge of familiar protectiveness in her voice. Familiar but new, he realizes. Early on, she’d been all too willing to go along with Nebula on calling him a fool. The same way she’d called him an honorless thief before.

“Well…” He considers for a moment, isn’t sure exactly what would make her most comfortable right now. Probably not more talk about sex, much as he might want to reassure her. Probably not sitting here on a bed, actually. He’s going to have to be careful, he knows, not to come on too strong, and not to move too quickly. The _last_ thing he wants is to make her uncomfortable, and he’s paradoxically even more likely to do that now without thinking about it. “Wanna get breakfast? Rocket and Groot finally brought over all the stuff we were storing on the Benatar, so there’s lots of options. Actually! There’s this stuff called bacon that I think you’re really gonna love.”

Sitting up and wiping at her eyes, she nods. “All right. Yes. I will try bacon with you.”

Peter grins wider than he has in weeks. “ _Awesome._ ”


	20. Chapter 20

Gamora has been in the dining area of the Quadrant a few times now -- that she remembers -- but she’s never seen it quite like this. Every other time she’s been in here, she’s been by herself in the middle of the night, or with Peter. Now, it’s packed with every member of the crew sitting at one long table, with the exception of Kraglin, who’s manning what Peter had called _”a rickety-ass space grill”_ , a pile of uncooked meat on a smaller table beside him. 

“How does everybody like their burgers?” Kraglin calls over the chatter of everyone’s conversations. 

A cacophony of responses follows, and Gamora can only distinguish a few actual words. 

“One at a time!” Kraglin says with an affectionate shake of his head. He’s been smiling pretty much the whole time; she thinks he must be happy to have a ship full of people again. 

“You know how I like mine, do you really gotta ask every time?” Rocket says. 

Gamora’s not paying attention to whatever Kraglin’s response is to that, because she’s suddenly realized that she has no idea how to answer when it’s her turn. She turns to Peter, who’s sitting next to her, close enough for their thighs to touch every time they shift. He’s already looking at her, with a small smile she returns easily. 

“You like it rare,” he informs her. 

“Okay,” she says simply. Then she repeats that to Kraglin. 

"Aw, how cute," says Rocket, in the same abrasive tone he was just using with Kraglin. The same tone he uses with everyone, really. She's starting to wonder whether he has any other ones, though from what she knows of Groot, she doesn't think he would respond well to it. "He's helpin' you figure out who you are. It's like one of those cheesy movies Quill loves where a Terran gets a tiny little bump on their head and forgets their whole life."

"That can happen?" asks Gamora, alarmed. She can't help picturing how often Peter seems to take a beating: she's witnessed it several times in the past few weeks alone. If it's really that dangerous for him…

"I know, right?" Rocket laughs. "Humies are pathetic."

Peter shakes his head and waves a hand dismissively. "Totally an exaggeration."

"Having a fragile physical form does not make one pathetic," Gamora tells Rocket, though she hears Thanos in the back of her mind telling her that is wrong. 

"Drax?" comes Kraglin's voice, with enough of an increase in volume to draw her attention. 

"Huh?" asks Drax, who appears to have dozed off momentarily. 

Kraglin shakes his head; clearly this is commonplace. "I asked how you want your burger."

"Next they're gonna have a whole thing about how burgers aren't rare," Peter whispers, warm breath brushing her neck. 

She shivers; when she turns her head to look at him, his face is so close to hers she could count his eyelashes if she wanted to. Which she definitely doesn’t, because that would be silly. Just because she wants to know every single detail about him, every aspect of his life, every part of his body, every freckle on his shoulders and hair on his chest and — 

“Burgers are quite common!” Drax says loudly, interrupting her train of thought. Peter grins, and his eyes crinkle with a warmth that makes her insides melt. She can’t help but smile back. 

“You have _got_ to know what that means by now,” Nebula growls. 

“I really don’t think he does,” Gamora whispers, this time making Peter laugh quietly. That wasn’t particularly funny, but she feels a thrill of pleasure that she amused him. 

“You lovebirds wanna just go in a corner to chat?” Rocket says derisively. “Or you wanna share with the class?” 

“What class?” Drax asks, causing Rocket to throw his hands up and Peter to laugh harder.

“It is a metaphor!” Mantis explains eagerly. 

“No—okay, nevermind,” Peter sighs. “Not worth it.” 

“I’m just cooking yours mid way,” Kraglin says, throwing the burgers on the grill. They make a sizzling noise and start emitting a smell that makes Gamora’s mouth water. 

“You’ve never had a burger before, right?” Peter murmurs, leaning in again. That also makes his thigh brush hers again, and she has to suppress the urge to shiver pleasantly. She thinks for a moment about how nice it was to lie down with him in the pillow fort, to sit half in his lap on the edge of the mattress in her guest quarters. She _doesn’t_ let herself think what a miracle it seemed to hear him say that he loves her...well, okay, she totally does think about it, because it’s impossible not to. She’s been replaying that moment in her mind pretty much all day, trying to convince herself that it really happened. She’s still not quite there yet, is waiting for the ground to collapse out from under her again. 

“Gamora?” he prompts gently, and she realizes she’s fallen silent too long. 

“Oh, no, I have,” she deadpans, because she wants to see him laugh again.

Predictably, his eyes widen comically. “You -- what? Really?”

Gamora shakes her head. “No. Never.”

Peter snorts, apparently delighted by her deception. “Okay, because I was gonna say. As far as _I_ know, the first time you tried a burger was on Xandar. Right after we defeated Ronan.”

“Did I like it?” she asks, though she has the near certain feeling that she did, and not just because Peter had told her she would like them now. 

“Hell yeah,” he confirms. “You loved it! It became one of your favorite foods.” 

She blinks and she suddenly has a flash of seeing a burger on a plate, dripping in grease and some kind of red sauce and _wanting_ it so badly but being afraid, unsure. But then something happened… Peter took a bite of it, she thinks, then handed it back to her with a small, soft smile. 

And then she blinks again and she’s just watching Peter watch her with a tilt of his head. It was such a fleeting, unclear image that she’s not certain whether it was a memory or if she was just imagining how her first experience with a burger would have gone… Though she has her guess. 

“You okay?” Peter whispers. 

“Yeah,” she says, deciding she’ll ask him about it later. She doesn’t want to bring it up with the rest of the team all around. She’s yet to tell any of them besides Nebula that she’s gotten any memories back, and even Nebula doesn’t know about all of them. 

“Did I like it better than bacon?” she asks for a slight change of subject, but also because she’s genuinely curious. 

He looks stumped by that question, which she actually finds promising. Thus far, Peter has been very confident in his knowledge of her preferences, so if he doesn’t immediately know this one, then maybe it means she’d liked the two things equally or almost so. And she _does_ like bacon very much. 

“I don’t know,” he admits, and a flash of sadness crosses his face. She can practically see the moment when he quashes it, though, and brightens back up again. “But you _really_ liked putting bacon _on_ burgers. Which is a brilliant little trick I taught you based on Earth cuisine.”

“That does sound very good,” says Gamora, though now she’s distracted by that look of his. She knows what it is: The reminder that there were still things he didn’t-- _doesn’t_ \--know about her. Which should not matter, because he can learn them about her _now_. But there’s still some sense of sadness to it, and does that mean that he sees a difference between her and -- well, her? No, she tells herself. _No_ , he’s just sad about the terrible things that happened at Thanos’ hand. He is allowed to have that pain.

She wants to comfort him somehow, though he’s smiling now, appearing mostly fond and happy. Still, she wishes there was some way to make sure he never experiences any pain ever again, impossible though that may be. 

“It is,” he says, interrupting that train of thought. There’s also a possibility that she gets distracted by that fond smile, and how cute it looks when his face is this close to hers. He’s got a pretty cute face in general, actually. “You’ll have to try it sometime. Again.”

“I would like that,” she says. “And I will tell you which one I like better.” His knee brushes against hers and she’s pretty sure he did it on purpose so she bumps her knee against his too. That makes his smile widen, and he actually pokes her thigh with a finger this time. 

“I’d like that too,” he says. She pokes his thigh with her finger in retaliation. 

“I would like it too!” Mantis, who is sitting across from her, says enthusiastically. Gamora nearly jumps in surprise at the reminder that there are other people in the room -- and the realization that they weren’t actually talking _that_ quietly. 

She glances over at Nebula to find that she’s making a gagging face at her. Thankfully, Rocket is occupied criticizing the way Kraglin flips the burgers, Groot is occupied by his video game, and Drax is staring off into space. Still, Gamora blushes. 

“Perhaps,” Nebula says, cutting across the conversations, “we can discuss something other than food?” 

“Like what?” asks Gamora, having trouble refocusing, her cheeks still warm. It’s such a peculiar feeling, knowing that _she_ is the reason Peter is smiling that way. That _she_ has brought him so much comfort and joy in the past, even if she doesn’t remember it. Even if most of the memories she _has_ regained have been painful ones. It feels even stranger to think that she can do all of those things with him again, right now, that there is nothing standing in her way but her own insecurity. That he _wants_ that from her -- No, with her. If she was able to have those things with him before, when Thanos was still around...well, then surely she can do better than that now.

“Oh!” says Peter, when it apparently becomes clear to him that she’s not about to answer. “We could talk about music! Or listen to some tunes. I could hook up--”

“The _last_ thing you two need right now is a sappy soundtrack,” says Nebula. 

Gamora feels the flush on her cheeks deepen even more, because she has to admit that her sister is probably right. She has yet to hear a single one of Peter’s songs that isn’t about love, and given the direction her thoughts are already taking… Abruptly she remembers that Peter has an entire playlist dedicated to their relationship, and that she’s barely heard any of it at all.

“Every moment needs a sappy soundtrack,” Peter declares. There’s a faint blush on his cheeks as well. Under the table, their knees brush again. 

“I would like to hear a sappy soundtrack!” Mantis says, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. 

“Can it at least wait til after we eat?” Rocket gripes. “I don’t wanna lose my appetite any more than I already have.” 

“What I _meant_ ,” Nebula says loudly, before anyone else can comment, and before Peter can actually play a song, which Gamora is certain he would do, if only to irritate Rocket. “Is that we should discuss the fact that there is a group of Thanos sympathizers out in the galaxy attempting to continue his mission.” 

“Oh,” Peter says, glancing at her. Gamora feels her good mood sober slightly; she’d been so baffled before when Peter was able to forget about the Sons, so focused on showing her songs, but now she’s gone and forgotten herself. 

“Yeah,” Rocket agrees. “We should discuss what kinda weapon I’m gonna make to blow those Sons of bitches up.” 

Nebula rolls her eyes. “You are the biggest moron here if you think it will be that simple.” 

“It’s _exactly_ that simple,” Rocket insists. He’s been hanging out by the grill where Kraglin’s cooking, but now he climbs onto the table and comes over to sit on his haunches in front of Nebula. “It’s always that simple, I’m just the only one that notices.”

“When has it ever been that simple?” asks Drax, apparently always eager to join a team argument, whether he’s been following along with the conversation up until now or not. That quality maybe ought to be unnerving, thinks Gamora, except that the way these people argue is so different from anything she has ever experienced. There never seem to be any long term negative consequences, nobody ever seems to be punished or -- or anything else she’s come to associate with disagreements. 

“Um, only every flarkin’ time?” Rocket crosses his arms, then shifts to spread his hands out in front of him, counting on his fingers as he lists examples. “Ronan: boom. Ego: boom. Thanos: basically a _boom_ , followed by the breeze blowin’ him away.”

“You didn’t make a bomb to blow up Thanos,” Nebula says crisply. 

“Yeah,” says Peter. “And I didn’t see you playing catch with any Infinity Stones on Xandar, either.”

“First of all,” says Rocket, “no way could you morons have pulled off either of those wins without _my_ part in them. And second of all, that wasn’t the point. The point was: _boom_.”

“I thought the point was you building a bomb,” Drax says, for once making a cogent point. 

“The point is that it will not be that simple,” Nebula insists. 

“The _point_ ,” Kraglin interrupts, causing Gamora to look over at him again, “is that yer burgers are ready.” He’s got a whole plate full now, and Gamora wonders how she failed to notice him even finishing the first one. “Besides, didn’t the Nova Corps _just_ tell you guys that they can’t figure out where the Sons went?” 

Rocket looks like he’s about to say something else snarky, but he’s stopped by Drax and Mantis simultaneously yelling, “Burgers!”

“They know what’s important,” Kraglin says, dishing out their burgers first. 

“Hey!” Rocket protests, moving to stand up in a chair. “Explosions are very important!” 

“And so is hunting down and killing anybody still sympathetic to Thanos,” Nebula growls, glaring at Kraglin until he hands her the next plate. Rocket, in the meantime, has hopped off the chair and gone over to grab his own plate, dropping one off in front of Groot too, who doesn’t look up from his game. 

“You better have left the rare ones,” Peter says, taking two plates when Kraglin finally gets to them and setting one in front of Gamora. 

“‘Course I did,” says Kraglin, though it’s fairly obvious that Peter was talking to Rocket. “I got yer backs.” Though she knows Kraglin the least well of any of them, there’s something undeniably soft in his eyes. Clearly he cares about Peter, which makes sense for them having grown up together, but also sort of flies in the face of most of what he’s told her about the Ravagers.   
“Groot and I like our burgers _cooked_ , thank you very much,” says Rocket, settling back in a chair with his plate.

“You mean charred to within an inch of its life,” Peter mutters.

“I thought we just established that burgers are very common,” Drax chimes in. “Also, they are dead before being cooked.”

“Oh my god,” Peter groans. “ _Dude._ ”

“What?” asks Drax, appearing perfectly genuine. “They are. In fact, Kraglin has at least a dozen more in the refrigerator.”

“I am Groot,” says Groot, looking up from his game for the first time. He picks up his own burger and takes a bite of it, then proceeds to talk with his mouth full, because that seems to be all anyone does on this ship. “I am _Groot._ ” Definitely an insult, definitely _not_ the sort of thing one would normally say to a parent. Then again, Gamora has no idea whether he actually views Drax as parental or as something else entirely. 

Whatever it was that he said, it makes Peter, Rocket, and Kraglin laugh. Nebula even smiles a little and Mantis joins in too, though Gamora suspects that’s just because she feels the general humor in the room, as her reaction was delayed. She sees Groot smirk in satisfaction before looking down at his game again. 

“I am _not_ the rarest moron of all!” Drax protests. Then he takes a huge bite of his burger. 

“You are all morons if you do not take this threat seriously,” Nebula growls. 

“We need to at least find out more information about them,” Gamora chimes in. She’s pointedly ignoring the burger in front of her, though it’s getting harder and harder by the second as she continually smells it. “So we can form a plan.”

“Sounds like a waste of time,” Rocket says derisively, with his mouth full, “when we know I can make ‘em blow up.”

“You are a waste of time,” Nebula says but without much bite. Gamora suspects her sister just enjoys the argument sometimes, a suspicion that gains strength when that comment leads to more bickering. 

“You like it with this stuff,” Peter says quietly to her, snapping her focus away from the argument and back to the food. He’s gesturing to a tube of a bright red, viscous liquid that doesn’t look particularly edible, though she wonders immediately whether it’s the sauce from her half-memory. Somehow the stuff on the burger had looked a lot more appetizing than this stuff does in the bottle.

"What is that?" she asks, trying to steer her mind away from the thought that it looks an awful lot like some sort of blood. Not Zehoberei blood, of course, or Terran blood for that matter but…

"Well," says Peter, "on Earth it's made from these red -- I think it was a fruit? Or maybe a veggie, it was a long time ago. Anyway, some kind of red plant ball thing. And it was called ketchup. This stuff's from Krylor and I never actually remember what it's supposed to be called because -- well, ketchup."

She blinks, feeling dumb as she tries to make sense of what he's saying. It doesn't help that he's talking a mile a minute or that he's leaning so close she can smell the cologne he apparently put on before this meal. "It -- what? What is there to catch?"

Peter makes that face of pained nostalgia that she's coming to associate with memories of her past self. His memories, anyway. It has no familiarity at all for her, though now she'd be willing to bet that that's exactly what she said the first time he introduced her to this stuff. "No, it's just -- that's what it's called, I don't know why. But it's really good, try some. And your burger, before it gets cold."

“Okay,” she says softly, looking down at her plate. She’s not entirely certain how to go about eating it with the not-ketchup, whether she is supposed to dip it or spread it on; and on top of that, she’s nervous at the prospect of trying a new food that she’s almost certainly going to like. Excited as well, but nervous, though she can come up with no rational reason why. It’s not as though Thanos is around anymore to punish her, to take away the things she enjoys, but there’s still a large part of her that instinctively fears that. 

“Do you want me to take a bite first?” Peter asks when she still hasn’t moved to pick up her burger. 

“No,” she says. The fear that someone here would want to hurt her is well at the back of her mind, almost nonexistent most of the time. “I am fine.” 

“You’ll like it, I promise,” Peter assures her. He bumps her knee with his, then takes the top bun off of his burger and squirts some of the ketchup substance onto it. She’s not sure whether he knew that she was hesitant about how to do it or if he just got impatient waiting for her to go first, but either way she’s grateful. 

“I know,” she says, and copies him once he’s done. She takes her time, stalling just a little bit. She had had a much easier time trying the bacon this morning, though she’d also known that she would like that -- or Peter had known, and he had informed her that she would. There was something easier about trying that when it was just the two of them. 

Peter doesn’t take a bite of hers for her, doesn’t do anything to hurry her along at all. But he does start eating his own burger, which somehow diffuses the tension a bit. He makes a happy sound as he swallows his first bite and gives Kraglin a thumbs up. Then he goes back to his burger again, and for the moment, so does everyone else. A sort of satisfied hush falls over the room as they all eat, an odd, unexpected sense of camaraderie that Gamora feels pulling her in. 

She glances around furtively to make sure nobody is watching her as she finally picks up her burger, an old habit that’s apparently going to die hard. It’s not like she thinks anyone here is about to swoop in and take her food, but there’s still a sense of vulnerability in eating something she wants so very much. It feels like baring a part of her soul. 

When she finally does take a bite, she knows immediately that she was right about the intensity of her reaction, and that Peter was right to have difficulty in judging the goodness of this compared to bacon. The burger is salty and savory and bursting with juice in her mouth, the ketchup a surprisingly pleasant contrast of sweetness. She lets her eyes fall closed for the briefest moment, allowing the sensation of eating this to consume her fully. 

When she opens her eyes again, she’s got an irrational fear in the back of her mind that she’s going to see the burger has disappeared from her hands or that everyone is staring at her, waiting to take it away from her or make fun of her for her enjoyment of it. She sees no such thing, of course; the burger is still there in her hands, and everyone is still occupied by their own delicious food. No one is looking at her. 

Except for Peter. But that doesn’t make her uncomfortable. In fact, the small smile and the soft look he’s got in his eyes make her smile in return, though she also blushes at that kind of attention. He’s even stopped eating his burger to look at her. 

“I don’t know if I can choose between this and bacon,” she informs him in a whisper. She worries a bit that this will disappoint him, since he’d been sad to discover that he didn’t know her preference before. But hey, perhaps the reason he didn’t know in the first place is because she never had a favorite. She can only imagine what they must taste like _together_. 

“That’s okay,” Peter says sincerely. “You don’t have to choose. I’ll get you as much of both as you want.”

“That is a lofty promise,” she says, her throat tight. “I think I’ll be wanting a lot.”

Peter ducks his head in a pose that reminds her of the stylized statue on Xandar, or of one of the Terran cinematic heroes he mentions so often. When he looks up again, he's grinning so brightly that it almost hurts to look at. "Then a lot you shall have! Including right now, if you want. Kraglin always makes seconds, and usually thirds too."

"I would not refuse that," Gamora allows herself, though it feels dangerous to acknowledge how much she likes this. And how much she likes _him_ but...well, too late to deny either of those things. Not that she'd even really want to. But she does add quickly, "If others want it too. Nobody needs to cook just for me."

"Well I'm totally gonna need at _least_ one more burger," Peter says loudly. She has the feeling that he would have said that even if another burger was the last thing in the universe that he wanted. But this is so delicious that she's sure he does want more. 

Kraglin grins, already mostly done with his own serving of food. "I gotcha! Don't we all?"

"I am full," says Mantis, though for some reason she's in the process or squeezing an enormous amount of ketchup onto her empty plate.

“I will eat her next one!” Drax says quickly and loudly, as though if he doesn’t someone else will claim it. “And my own! I will eat both!” 

“Two for Drax, comin’ up,” Kraglin says, shaking his head. He finishes the last of his first burger and returns to the grill. “Who else?” 

Everybody else besides Mantis agrees that they want another. When Mantis hears this, she apparently changes her mind because she says, “Me too!” 

“I have already claimed yours,” Drax tells her matter-of-factly. 

Her antennae wilt, but quickly perk back up when Kraglin says, “How ‘bout I make you two, and Drax can have one of them?”

“I accept,” Drax says. Rocket rolls his eyes so far back his pupils nearly disappear. 

“Crisis averted,” Peter mumbles. Gamora smiles, fondness blooming in her chest; mostly for Peter, but for the rest of the team as well. And a little for her burger, which she eats faster now that she’s assured she’ll be getting another one. 

The conversation lulls for only a brief moment before Nebula, finished with her first burger, says, “It worries me that the Sons have been quiet. They are likely re-grouping and discovering as much information about us as they can, since they’d have to be even bigger morons than all of you if they haven’t realized who we are by now.” 

Gamora pauses at that, swallowing the last of her first burger. It isn’t as though she’s really dismissed the Sons -- far from it, of course. Hearing Thanos’ name had been horrifying beyond measure, had shaken her to her core. The fact that anyone could share his ambitions is sickening. The fact that they’d almost managed to kill her friends -- almost managed to kill _Peter_ is worse. Yet somehow she’s allowed herself to bury that fear and horror over the past few days. Somehow she’s allowed herself to focus instead on the things she’s learning about her home, her family. On the hopelessly strong attachment she’s developing for all of them. But the Sons would aspire to take that away again in a heartbeat, she thinks. Suddenly it becomes clear to her how she managed to live in the shadow of Thanos himself for so many years; how easy it must have been to push that to the back of her mind after a while. 

“We have to do something,” she says abruptly, but firmly. The words are out of her mouth before it occurs to her that it’s going to draw all of the attention in the room to her, that not all of the others might feel _she_ belongs to the _we_ she’s just mentioned.

“Thank you!” says Nebula, sounding vindicated.

“Well, yeah,” Rocket grumbles. “Obviously we gotta do _something_. Blowing them up _is_ something.” 

“I would also like to blow them up!” Mantis says enthusiastically. 

“I would like to stab them,” Drax says. He punches the air, which Gamora supposes is intended to be a demonstration. 

Groot once again glances up from his game with a smirk. “I am Groot.”

“I would _not_ like to be a moron!” Drax protests. 

“Guys,” Peter says, throwing his arms out as if to stop a physical altercation rather than a verbal one. “We _all_ wanna kill those bastards. No one is arguing that.”

“But we don’t even know where to find them to do that,” Gamora agrees. Peter smiles at her and she smiles back. “We need to collect more intel, have a real plan.” 

“Ugh, you’re sickening,” Rocket says, rolling his eyes for about the dozenth time in this conversation. He continues before either of them can respond -- or before anyone else at the table can echo his sentiment, which she has a feeling Nebula would do if only to tease her. “But okay, yeesh, we can do some dumb _researchin’_ first before we go blow ‘em up.”

“Good,” Nebula says with an air of finality. 

Gamora doesn’t say anything in response. She is too busy looking at Rocket in surprise. He has essentially agreed with her twice in the last minute without insulting her -- okay, without insulting her _too much_. True, he hasn’t been as mean to her lately as he had been when she first rejoined them, but he hasn’t exactly been nice, either. Though she supposes he’s not really _nice_ to any of them most of the time. 

She must be letting her guard down because Rocket catches her surprise. To be fair, she hasn’t really tried to hide it at all. Does it really take so little time for all of those instincts that have kept her alive since she was a child to just...melt away? 

“What?” asks Rocket, an edge of challenge in his voice. He crosses his arms and tilts his chin up defiantly. 

To her surprise, Gamora feels a smile tugging at her lips. Rocket has been nothing but hostile to her practically since the beginning, and she has to admit that she’s seen him as the biggest potential threat from this group. But suddenly she’s reminded of her midnight conversation with Groot, of the way she’d recognized the hurt, moody teenager in him. Rocket isn’t so different from that, she realizes. Or from Nebula, really. 

Or from herself, not so very long ago.

“You agreed with me,” she points out, her tone even.

Rocket sniffs. “Yeah, well, don’t go gettin’ cocky just ‘cause you had one non-terrible idea.”

“I will do my best,” she says, as seriously as she can. Her smirk may ruin it. 

“Hey, Gamora has a billion non-terrible ideas!” Peter says, then smiles at her as if he’s just paid her a great compliment. 

“Gee, thank you,” she says, again as seriously as possible. 

Peter’s face falls comically when he seems to realize how that might have sounded. “I mean amazing, perfect, wonderful ideas! The best ideas in the galaxy.” 

“That is better,” she says, though the compliment makes her blush. She does not feel worthy of it, or any of the nice things Peter says about her, but he seems to enjoy saying them, so who is she to protest? 

“Ugh,” Nebula groans. “I agree with Rocket. You two are sickening.”

“That mean you’re too sickened for your second burger?” Kraglin asks, grinning as he holds up a plate full of them. 

“I will eat hers!” Drax exclaims. 

“If you even try, I will slice your arm off,” Nebula says, glaring at him. 

“You are already having one of mine,” Mantis reminds him. 

“Oh, right,” he says, apparently having forgotten this. “That is fine, then.”

Groot grows some vines out of one of his arms to snake a burger off the plate while everyone bickers; Gamora catches his eye and winks, which makes him smile for just a second before he turns back to his game. 

“I’m not opposed to making thirds,” Kraglin says. He actually sounds pretty happy to do it. Gamora wonders if he genuinely likes cooking that much or if he’s just happy to be surrounded by this team again. She would bet it’s the latter. _She_ is certainly happy to be surrounded by them, though she doesn’t remember most of the first time. 

Still, when she gets her second burger, the smell of it, and the sound of the others’ playful arguments, and the way Peter’s knee keeps brushing against hers, makes her think that maybe it’s okay to forget about the Sons for just a little while longer. At least until after dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was a little shorter than usual!! This chapter and the next were originally the same one, but we had to split it because it got so dang long!


	21. Chapter 21

Dinner, it turns out, stretches into far more than just a meal. Kraglin makes thirds, then _fourths_ for Drax, who’s already eaten several burgers from others at the table too. Gamora has a momentary thought about the conversation where he’d bragged about his vomit and hopes fervently that that’s not the next development. Fortunately there’s no need to worry, though, as the conversation turns to Kraglin, Rocket, and Nebula telling probably-slightly-embellished stories of their exploits in the years after Thanos had...well. 

Still, she’s shocked by how late it’s gotten by the time they finally all trickle out of the dining room. She’s pleasantly stuffed with burgers, feeling warm from head to toe, and like she might actually be able to get some sleep. At least, until the thought of _where_ that sleep is going to occur comes to mind.

She and Peter haven’t discussed that, haven’t said anything at all about the logistics of this odd half-formed thing between them. She’s established wanting to move slowly, so it doesn’t even occur to her as a real possibility that they’d return to the shared quarters he’d shown her on that first day aboard the Quadrant. Still, she doesn’t particularly want to spend the night alone either, but has no idea whether he feels the same way.

They split off from the others to walk together, making idle conversation during the short journey. The room Peter’s been staying in isn’t far, so they reach it quickly and pause outside it. 

“So, uh…” Peter starts, but apparently doesn’t have a plan for how to finish because he trails off, scratching the back of his head and rocking back and forth on his heels a few times. 

“So…” Gamora prompts. She wonders if this is her cue to just leave, if he’s feeling awkward because he doesn’t want to tell her to. But he hasn’t opened his door yet, and surely that would be a better cue. 

“Are you, um, planning to sleep now?” he asks. 

“Yes,” she says. She tries to come up with something else to say, some way to elaborate and possibly figure out what he wants, but she’s got nothing. 

“Cool, cool,” he says. He’s stopped rocking his feet but now he’s got his hands shoved in his pockets. “Me too.”

“Cool,” she echoes. Then they lapse into silence for a while. He hasn’t extended an offer for her to join him, and the idea of asking him herself makes her throat close up. What if he says no? What if he gets mad at her for saying she wants to take things slowly, then inviting herself into his bed? What if he thinks she means something else by that? As much as she doesn’t want to sleep without him, she doesn’t want to give him mixed signals, either. Or get rejected. 

Peter opens his mouth, closes it again, then clears his throat. "Okay, well. Good night, then." No invitation, no suggestion. Maybe she senses that he wants to say something else or maybe it's all just wishful thinking. 

"Good night," Gamora echoes. She has the sudden impulse to reach out and touch him, or maybe do something really stupid like shake his hand. She crosses her arms over her chest to guarantee that they're under control. 

"Yep," says Peter, opening the door finally but not going inside yet. "Good night. I'll uh...see you tomorrow, right?"

"Right," she agrees quickly, then wonders if it was too quickly. Why would she not see him tomorrow? Does he think she's planning to do something that excludes seeing him? Or does he have plans of his own that he hasn't shared? But then why would he have just confirmed that they will see one another? She is being ridiculous. 

"Cool," he says. 

"Cool," she echoes again. 

He does a little wave as he backs into his room, nearly tripping on his own feet as he keeps his eyes on her the whole time. She also watches until the door is shut, then finally heads off to her own quarters. 

This is fine, she tells herself as she walks down the empty halls. She’s slept alone for her entire life. There’s no reason why she should be disappointed by this; just because now she knows what it feels like to fall asleep with Peter’s body next to hers, how it feels for his arms to wrap securely around her and to hear the sound of his heart with her ear pressed to his chest, that doesn’t mean she can’t handle sleeping without any of that. 

Her room feels colder than before when she opens the door, which is nonsense. It’s the same temperature as the hallway right outside. But the last time she was in here, so was Peter. 

The temperature issue is briefly resolved when she feels a warm blush rise in her cheeks at the sight of the clothing strewn all over the bed and the floor. She’d been so distracted by everything that happened after, she’d managed to forget that the last time she was in here was _also_ when she had freaked out and packed up her things to leave the ship. When she’d thought Peter didn’t care about her. 

She sets about quickly picking up her belongings and putting them back in the tiny closet, taking much less care than she normally would. She just wants them out of her sight, to get rid of the reminder of how silly she’d been to react that way to an overheard conversation. Bad enough that she’d been so affected, but she’d made Peter panic too. 

The last thing she wants to do is hurt him, but she seems capable of nothing else. Which probably shouldn’t be such a surprise, given her background, but still. He’s so convinced that she’s capable of being more, of being better, that she’d almost managed to believe him. She’d let her guard down. And how cruelly ironic is it that this time she’s hurt him not by _failing_ to be the woman he lost, but by assuming that was what _he_ wanted? 

Sighing, Gamora finishes putting the last of the things back into the closet and then climbs onto the bed. She’s still on top of the covers, still fully clothed. That’s a longtime habit, though she’d started to change into softer gym clothes on the Benatar, mainly because all of the others had made such a big deal out of having pajamas. Well, aside from Drax, who apparently insists on sleeping in the nude. Tonight changing feels too vulnerable, though. And too damn cold.

She really, really hates the cold. After lying there letting herself be miserable for a while, she finally decides that just because she won’t be able to have Peter’s warmth tonight doesn’t mean she needs to force herself to be colder than she has to be. There’s no point in punishing herself, she tells herself in a voice that sounds very much like Peter. 

The covers help, though she’s still cold. But this is warmer than she ever was on Sanctuary, so she really ought to be grateful. She _is_ grateful. It’s just that now that she’s experienced the warmth of lying with Peter, she feels even colder in his absence. 

Perhaps she never should have allowed herself to have that. More and more, she’s realizing how she could have allowed herself to grow complacent in the past she doesn’t remember; here she is after such a short amount of time, already unable to fall asleep just because she’s sleeping alone. She can’t keep thoughts of Peter out of her mind, like he’s taken over every part of her brain; like she’s the lovesick teenager she never got to be. It’s pathetic, really. 

Thinking about that overheard conversation again now, she plays that horrible instant over in her head, because surely if she does that enough times, she’ll be able to solidify for herself just how very ridiculous her reaction was. But then, as she plays the words over in her mind, another horrible thought occurs to her: What if everything after that moment had been an act? What if Peter has only been saying what he’d known she needed to hear in order to prevent her from leaving? What if he really _does_ still want back the other version of her, the one who’d have no hesitation at this exact moment about getting into bed with him? 

_No_ , she tells herself firmly, or as firmly as she can. That’s Thanos’s influence in her head, convincing her that any nice thing must be a trick or a lie, that she can’t possibly have anything good. She trusts Peter and Nebula, and she’s starting to trust the rest of this team too. 

She wonders if she had these doubts earlier, in the years she’s missing; and if so, how long did it take her to get rid of them? Did she _ever_ get rid of them? She must have, at least more than this. No matter how much she tries to tell herself that these thoughts are absurd, they seem to insist on sticking in her mind. 

She doesn’t know how long she lies there, trying to fall asleep, but she’s hopelessly unsuccessful. Finally, angry at herself for her lack of control over her own mind, she throws the covers off her body and stands up off the bed. She is going to _prove_ to herself that she’s being ridiculous. She doesn’t exactly know how, but she knows she wants to see Peter, and no matter what she fears, she has to believe that he meant it when he said she could come find him anytime. So before she can talk herself out of it, she yanks open her door and steps out into the hallway -- 

Only to nearly run into Peter, who’s standing right there. 

“Shit!” Peter yelps, stumbling backward as if she actually _has_ run into him, although she definitely didn’t. 

She has to admit she feels the same way, taken aback and reeling at the sight of him here. True, she was just about to go and find him and now he’s saved her the step of actually going anywhere, but...How long has he been standing here outside her door? How did she manage not to hear his heartbeat, his breathing, both of which are now alarmingly fast and loud? And why does he look so distressed, eyes red-rimmed and hair disheveled? 

“Peter?” she asks, when no other words come to mind. It’s a thousand questions in a single word, and she hopes that he understands that message better than she’s been able to communicate it. 

“Sorry!” he stammers instead, rubbing the back of his neck the way he does when he’s feeling awkward or unsure. “Sorry, sorry, I wasn’t -- I -- sorry!”

“What are sorry for?” she asks. He’s blushing, and she wonders if she is too, just from being caught off guard like this. 

“For being--” He gestures vaguely, to the door behind her or the wall or the hallway itself, she’s not sure. “I didn’t mean to be here when you were -- coming out, I just… I was gonna knock, I swear! I wasn’t trying to stand out here being weird, but then I wasn’t sure if you were sleeping or if you’d actually want--” He cuts himself off, pressing his lips together as if to keep any more words from coming out. Briefly, his hand presses against the wall next to the door, as if he’s going to affect a casual stance, but he quickly drops it and runs it through his hair instead. 

Watching him, something in Gamora’s chest aches. Even knowing him for such a short amount of time -- that she remembers -- she _knows_ his self-assured, cocky attitude is an act. But she’s still not used to seeing him look quite this nervous. He also looks pretty haggard; his eyes, besides being red-rimmed, have bags under them too that weren’t that bad the day before. She suddenly remembers that when she found him in his room last night, he’d been awake too. She wonders if he slept at all. 

“You were going to knock?” she prompts, because of course it now occurs to her that _she_ was also planning to go knock on his door. If she’d hesitated just a few minutes less, would she have been the one standing there in shock, equilibrium lost to the surprise of him emerging from his room right before she could have announced her presence?

Well, probably not, because probably she would have heard him moving around inside, would have made some adjustment in her own behavior. Would she have knocked more hastily, or...or would she have just walked away as quickly as possible? Probably the latter, she thinks with disgust. That would be another thrilling development in the move she’s apparently making toward being entirely pathetic.

Peter nods, but apparently still can’t quite come up with an answer he can articulate in full sentences. “I um -- I wanted -- I just -- I thought -- Sorry. Shit. Did I wake you up?”

“No,” says Gamora, deciding on honesty. He looks so tired, so vulnerable that suddenly she wishes she had a secret calming ritual to offer him like he did with the pillow fort. She doesn’t, of course. She can barely even remember any of what her own mother did to comfort her as a child, and it’s not like Peter has hair she can braid. Still, there is something she can offer. “Did you want to come inside?”

His face brightens, hope shining in his eyes, but he still looks cautious. “I--yeah, if you want...if you’re sure.”

Wanting more than anything right now to make him feel better, to reassure him, she lays a hand on his arm and says, “Yes, I am. I was just coming to find you.” 

“You were?” he asks, relief flooding his face, as well as a small but genuine smile. The ache in her chest loosens and she returns his smile. 

“Yes,” she says, sliding her hand down his arm to grasp his. “Come on.” Then she turns and leads him into the room, closing the door behind them.

And then her momentary burst of confidence wavers when suddenly they’re inside, and she’s still holding his hand, and she has no idea what to do now. Would he want her to build him a pillow fort? She’d certainly be willing to try, but he’d said that was _his_ ritual for _her_ , so she has no idea if that would comfort him or not. 

Before she can come up with any alternatives, Peter squeezes her hand and says softly, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says automatically, before it registers why he’s asking. In the face of Peter’s obvious distress, she had forgotten that she was upset too, and that he’s likely curious about why she was coming to find him in the middle of the night again. And why she hasn't changed her clothes. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” says Peter. He looks down at their hands again, makes no move to let go. Which is good, because she doesn’t want him to but also doesn’t want to have to _tell_ him not to. Apparently she is still as bad at that _talking about feelings_ thing as she had been...well, before. “Did you have a nightmare?”

She sighs. “No. Having a nightmare would require me to go to sleep in the first place, which I did not do.”

His gaze turns to a mix of sympathy and concern. “Any particular reason? Were you -- um -- cold again?”

She shivers at the words, because apparently her stupid body feels the need to betray her. Then she wonders how he knew that, whether he can somehow tell from the way her covers are thrown aside or if he has some way of monitoring -- No, that’s the paranoia again. He knows because he knows _her_. Because he cares about her, which is a good thing, not a dangerous thing, and what she really ought to be concerned about is how exhausted he looks right now.

“Come sit down?” she suggests, only half aware that she’s dodging his question. 

“Okay,” he says easily, but he doesn’t actually move. He’s looking to her, she realizes, for guidance, so she leads him the few small steps over to the bed and sits down on the edge of it. He follows her, still holding her hand, sitting as close to her as he did at dinner. 

She tries to come up with something to say, to figure out what she’s supposed to do now. She’s not used to this caretaking role. She wonders if she was more used to it in the past; she must have been, since Peter is clearly putting so much trust in her to help him now. If only she could know what she did, or if she could be more natural at this so she could just automatically know what he needed and give it to him. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says after a few moments of silence. 

It takes her a beat to remember what he’s talking about. When she does, she says, “Oh, I...Yes. I was a little cold.” Okay, it was more than _a little_ , but that’s a lot more honest than the instinctively panicky part of her brain was telling her to be. Before he can ask her to elaborate, she asks, “What about you?”

“Eh, I was a little warm, actually,” he says with a weak attempt at a smile. 

“Peter,” she presses. She looks down at where their hands are still joined, resting against the top of her knee. He’s shaking a bit, she realizes, though it’s so subtle that she’s managed to miss it until now. She can also feel his pulse racing in his wrist, and his skin is cool and clammy despite what he’s said about being warm. 

“Why were you cold?” asks Peter, blatantly ignoring her intentions this time. True, she hasn’t exactly been straightforward with her questioning, but she’s made two attempts to encourage him to talk, and if he knows her as well as she thinks he does…

“Do you not trust me?” she asks, the words coming out a bit more harshly than she’s really intended. She wouldn’t trust her either, given the circumstances, and she knows better than anyone that suspicion can be dangerous. 

Now he does drop her hand, jumps back like she’s struck him, looks so surprised that she instantly feels as guilty as if she _had_ managed to physically hurt him. “I -- you -- _what_?”

“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me,” she says quickly, fumbling to fix what she’s just done. 

“I didn’t mean… No, it’s not that--” He cuts himself off and hides his face in his hands for a moment, scrubbing them over the skin. Gamora sits tensely, afraid to say anything else because she’s already made this worse. 

“I’m sorry,” she says when she can’t take the silence any longer. She used to be better with silence; Peter must be rubbing off on her, though apparently not in his skills at providing comfort. “I don’t...I don’t know how to do this.” 

He lifts his head and looks at her curiously. He doesn’t appear angry at her, though she’s plenty angry at herself for the both of them. “How to do what?”

“How to...give you what you need,” she says, struggling to articulate it. “How to help you.” 

“‘Mora,” he says, his shoulders relaxing. She hadn’t noticed before how tensed up they’d been; as much as hers are now, probably. He leans back towards her from where he’d recoiled away. “You don’t have to _do_ anything. Just be you. That’s what helps me.” 

“I am only hurting you,” she says in a sad, small whisper. 

“No, you’re not,” he says. He reaches over and puts his hand palm-up on her knee. “You just...surprised me. I didn’t think you’d need to ask me that. I trust you more than anyone in the universe.” 

“Then why won’t you answer my question?” she asks, her heart still hammering. She knows he can’t hear it and is grateful for that, yet she still feels oddly embarrassed about it. His is beating even faster, of course, and all she feels about _that_ is a mix of sympathy and guilt. No judgment at all, even as she judges herself both for what she’s feeling and for being the cause of his feeling the same.

Peter scratches his head in that now-familiar gesture. “I didn’t -- I’m not -- _not_ answering it?” Then, of course, he continues to not answer it. “I just -- I wanted you to answer mine first. Not because I don’t trust you!”

She crosses her arms, studying his face. She wants to believe him, really, but… “You still haven’t answered!”

“Because I don’t wanna make this about me!” he blurts, cheeks flushing even more than they already were. The blush is spreading down his neck and she is _not_ going to get distracted by it. She isn’t.

Gamora blinks, taken aback all over again. “But it _is_ about you. You were the one looking for me, weren’t you?”

“And you were about to do the same!” says Peter, then seems to consider what he’s said. “Well, kinda the opposite. You weren’t about to go looking for yourself, I don’t think.”

“ _Peter_ ,” she repeats, getting truly frustrated. “I know you are trying to avoid the question with humor.”

“Are you saying I’m funny?” he asks with a smirk that she can tell is faked, but that increases her irritation. She says nothing, only glares at him in response. She’s grateful that it only takes him a few seconds to relent; she doesn’t think she’d have the energy for an argument right now. 

“Hey, okay, I’m sorry,” he says, eyes downcast. “I just don’t want… You’re going through _so much_ , Gamora, you shouldn’t have to comfort _me_. You’ve got enough of your own stuff to deal with without me heaping mine on top of it.” 

“Peter,” she says once again, but this time her voice is much softer. She finally accepts his unspoken invitation and lays her hand in his, watching his fingers slowly curl around hers. The idea that somebody would care that much about her, to try to push down their own problems to help her with hers… No matter how often Peter has done it, it still manages to take her by surprise. “You are going through just as much.”

“What?” he asks, already shaking his head. “No, Gamora, you--”

“You _are_ ,” she interrupts. “And you are being so patient with me anyway, even though I…Well. I know that must be hard for you.” 

“I would do anything for you,” he says earnestly. 

“Then _answer_ the question,” she says fiercely. Her instincts have kicked in first with the realization that he’s backed himself into a corner, that he’ll have to do what she wants him to do or else he’ll be stuck invalidating his own point. She feels a surge of triumph at that before the rest of what he’s said kicks in. He’s said those words to her so many times before, but somehow they haven’t struck her in the same way until now. Probably because she hasn’t truly believed them. 

Peter opens his mouth, snaps it shut, then sighs. She sees the shift in him as he decides to relent, to do this her way and stop pursuing the confession he’s been seeking from her. She doesn’t have time to wonder whether she ought to feel guilty about _that_ too. “I did have a -- weird dream. I mean, I guess you’d call it a nightmare. And I wanted -- shit, I don’t know.”

“You wanted me to make you feel better,” says Gamora, knowing it’s true, though she doesn’t understand it. What fool would want that from _her_?

“I -- yeah,” he breathes, shoulders slumping again. “I did. But I also didn’t wanna wake you up, or impose… Pretty much failed at all that, huh.”

“You did not wake me up,” she says, squeezing his hand. “And you are not imposing.” She wonders how he could possibly think those things, but then again, she thought them too, didn’t she? That was the reason she hesitated for so long before getting out of bed to go find him. And he’d even _told_ her she could come find him if she needed anything, something she realizes she hasn’t done for him. 

“No?” he asks. She thinks he’s doing that thing where he pretends to be casual, but does an extremely bad job at it. 

“No,” she says. “You told me that I could come to you any time, no matter what, right?” 

“Yeah,” he confirms. “Of course. For anything.” 

“Well,” she says. “You can do the same.” She still doesn’t quite understand why he would seek comfort from her, someone who has dealt only in pain in the past, but if he wants it, then well…she wants to give it to him. 

He smiles, a slightly bashful thing that makes her heart flutter. Deciding to take a page out of his book to lighten the mood, she adds, “Well, not exactly the same. I presume you will not be coming to find yourself in the middle of the night.” 

He snorts, but his smile only turns more affectionate, more...adorable, if she’s honest with herself. “I see what you did there.” 

She arches an eyebrow, putting on her most innocent face, which is not very innocent. “What did I do?”

“You made a bad -- well, a _me_ joke,” says Peter, only stumbling over the words a little bit as he seems to realize what he’s about to imply. 

She realizes it too. “Peter Quill, were you about to call your own jokes bad?”

He claps a hand over his heart, feigning an absolutely theatrical level of shock. “Me? I would _never_ imply something so blatantly wrong!”

“Oh,” she says, “well my mistake, then.” She falls silent for a moment before another thought occurs to her. “Besides, it was not a _you_ joke.”

He arranges his face into a look that’s now very solemn, though with the same level of theatrical ridiculousness as before. “Oh no? What kind of a joke was it then?”

“A Drax joke,” says Gamora, like it ought to be obvious. She’s practically giddy at the reactions she’s getting out of him, the way she’s able to make him smile, make him forget about the pain that got him out of bed. Deciding to push it a step further, she lowers her voice in an approximation of Drax’s. “You would not be coming to find yourself in the middle of the night. You would not need to because you would be right there.”

Peter throws his head back and laughs long and hard at that, but when he’s calmed enough to meet her eyes again, there’s something surprisingly soft in them. Something that makes her suspect the tears in them might not all be from mirth.

“What is it?” she asks gently, momentarily afraid that she’s done something wrong.

Peter shakes his head. “Nothing, nothing. I just -- god, I _missed_ you.”

“Oh,” she says, not sure exactly what to do with that. “The...old me?” She just barely stops herself from saying _other_. She’d thought she was past distinguishing between them, but if Peter still does…

“No, no,” he says quickly. “Really. I just meant, you know, you used to pull out your Drax impression all the time.” 

“Did I?” she asks, surprised. She supposes she shouldn’t be, since she just did it right now, but it’s strange to think that she made so many jokes in the past that she has recurring ones Peter remembers. 

He nods, his smile fond. “It’s always hilarious. Plus I missed, like...how close we were. You were--you _are_ my best friend. And I’m glad I didn’t lose that.”

“I am glad too,” she says. This is the closest she has ever felt to somebody since childhood -- well, apparently not, but that she can remember -- and it’s difficult to imagine that she could be even closer with him. But she wants to be. “Is that what you were dreaming about? The--me in the past?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, smile fading, presumably as he remembers the dream. “Well, kinda.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks after he doesn’t elaborate. “I’ve heard that helps.” 

He chuckles, because of course she heard that from him. “I...yeah. If that’s okay, I mean, I don’t wanna keep you up or anything--”

“I don’t mind,” she says. It’s not like she was able to sleep without him anyway. “Do you want a pillow fort?” 

He shakes his head, but his soft smile is back. “No. Just you.” 

A shiver runs through her at the way he says that, though it’s more thrill than chill. Both the words and the gentle reverence in his expression seem to go straight to her core. It’s the same vulnerable place Thanos had touched with fear, only this is...something else entirely. 

“Do you want to lie down?” she asks, because he hasn’t immediately started speaking and she isn’t sure what exactly having _her_ means. She also isn’t sure how much of herself she is prepared to offer. And he certainly doesn’t seem to be asking more than what she _wants_ to offer. 

Peter searches her face for a moment, as if proving her point. He’s clearly making sure that she’s genuine in her willingness before he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

He’s apparently taken the time to put his boots on before venturing out into the hall, and now it takes him a couple tries to kick them off. When he succeeds, she has the momentary thought that there’s something oddly intimate about seeing him in socks. It’s not like this is the first time, but still. It enhances the vulnerability of the moment somehow as he draws his legs up onto the bed, stretches out on his side. 

She looks at him for a moment as it occurs to her that she doesn’t quite know what to do here. Should she lie on her side as well? Or would that be too much? She isn’t sure how she could comfort him that way. But she needs to make a decision fast, because she can’t just sit here staring at him. 

Remembering how he’d done this in the pillow fort, she lies down slowly on her back next to him, stretching out her arm so that there’s room for him to scoot in closer. “Come here?”

She worries she’s done the wrong thing when he doesn’t move at first, but before she can really begin doubting herself, he smiles and comes closer, resting his head on her shoulder and upper chest. He tentatively wraps his arm around her waist too, laying it loosely across her stomach. As with pretty much every time he touches her, he moves slowly so that she has time to pull away or tell him to stop, and that simple act of respect still makes her breath catch in her throat. 

They’re both a little bit stiff at first, but when Gamora rests her hand on his forearm where it’s resting on her, he noticeably relaxes, and she does too. She wraps her other arm loosely around his shoulders, trying to imitate the way he’d held her before. “This okay?” she whispers. She can’t see his face very well in this position, but she can see that the corner of his mouth is upturned in a gentle smile. 

“Yeah,” he whispers back. “Thank you.”

The angle doesn’t quite work the same way it did when their positions were reversed, mainly because of their difference in size. But she runs her hand over his arm as best she can, still wanting to offer the same comfort he’d given to her. It works at least a little, judging by the way he exhales and sinks a bit further into the mattress. Well, okay, maybe more than a little: she’s barely done anything and he’s basically boneless in her arms. It’s such a peculiar feeling, being trusted in this way. Being _needed_ in this way.

“Talk to me?” she asks, her voice low since she’s practically talking into his ear. And also just because that feels right, given the situation.

He takes a breath and blows it out again. “Okay. Okay, so um -- Well, you know about Knowhere?” He snorts bitterly, no mirth to it at all. “That woulda been funny a few years ago. Now it’s just -- God, I’m glad that whole place burned.”

“I know about Knowhere,” she says, picturing the memory the Xurcoils showed her and trying not to react viscerally. She manages, mostly, but only because of her conviction that this is about him, that she will not end up requiring comfort for herself.

“Right,” he says, something apologetic about his tone. Perhaps he senses her distress at the memory, or perhaps he’s just guilty about it in general. “Well, that’s what I dreamed about. It was just the memory at first. Thanos...got you. I held the blaster, and I…you know. And then Thanos took you.”

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, partially just for the fact that he had to relive that in a dream, but also because she got him involved with Thanos in the first place, even if she doesn’t remember it. He would never have had to deal with him if it weren’t for her. 

“Not your fault,” he says. Even though he’s wrong, she doesn’t want to fight him on it. He does not blame her, and blaming herself will only distress him further, she knows. 

“You said that was only the first part?” she asks instead. 

He nods, and she feels the way his chest expands as he takes a deep breath and lets it out. “Yeah. After…After you disappeared with Thanos, it changed. I turned around and you were there again. I think it was--you know, you _now_. You were upset that I failed. You--you told me that you thought you could trust me. And I tried to--I don’t know, explain, or anything, but then you disappeared too; turned into bubbles.” 

"I was upset at you?" she asks, unable to comprehend that when she is so busy feeling guilty herself. How can he possibly -- even on a subconscious level -- believe that she would do or think such a thing? For a moment the paranoia reasserts itself, making the claim that of course it was _her_ being critical of him in the dream. It wasn't the other -- It wasn't the Gamora that Thanos took, that he clearly still misses…

"Yeah," says Peter, then continues quickly, "in the dream. I know that wasn't real. I do. I know you would never -- you'd blame yourself first. Right?" The last comes out in a very small voice that makes her heart ache, certain and yet desperate all the same. He believes what he is saying but clearly still needs to hear the confirmation from her. 

"Right," says Gamora. Isn't that what she's doing now, blaming herself? "I would never -- No part of me would ever think that you had failed. I would regret only that I had led you to try." She considers for a second, then adds, “I _do_ regret asking you to try. I remember that moment and I didn’t blame you then, either.” 

“You didn’t?” he asks, still in that same small voice. 

“Not at all,” she assures him. “It never crossed my mind.” All she remembers feeling for him at that moment was love. She loved him so much it hurt, loved him more than anything in the universe. There was an incredible sadness too, because of the painful knowledge that she was likely to never see him again. Or so she thought, because here she is with a second chance, even though she hardly remembers the first. 

She doesn’t say any of that, though. Even the idea of saying some of those things feels too huge to contemplate. So instead, she redirects the subject and asks, “Was that the end of the dream?”

He nods, which makes his hair brush against her neck in a way that nearly makes her shiver, but not in an unpleasant way. “Yeah. I woke up right after you--disappeared. I don’t think I was asleep for very long.” 

“Well,” she says thoughtfully, “maybe it’s fortunate that you didn’t sleep very long, then. If that was what your mind decided to do with it.”

“Yeah,” he says on a decidedly rueful sigh. He shivers and she wonders whether these things make him feel cold in the same way that she does. So far in the time that she’s known him -- well, in the time that she’s been getting to know him _again_ \-- he’s been nothing but warm, but...maybe he doesn’t feel that way on the inside. Maybe that’s similar to his facade of cool bravado. 

“Before -- all of this,” she says carefully, “did you often dream about -- _me_ being disappointed in you?”

“No!” he says immediately, flinching a bit at the question. She wonders whether it was the wrong thing to ask, but he doesn’t pull away and after another moment he relaxes again, blowing out another breath. “I mean -- not -- not like this? I always kinda -- worried that things were too good to be true. Not because you gave me any reason to think that! Just -- You have _always_ been the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Gamora.”

“Oh,” she says. She tells herself not to get choked up over that and partially succeeds. She has to clear her throat subtly before she can speak again, but she needs to get these words out before she has a chance to second guess; no matter how big and scary they feel, Peter deserves to hear them. “I know that you were the best thing that ever happened to me. And you are again. Or...still are.” 

He tilts his head to look up at her through his eyelashes. His face is so close she could count them if she wanted to, which she definitely doesn’t because that would be an absurd thing to do. “Really?”

“Yes,” she says, looking steadily at his eyes and not his lashes. His eyes are very pretty. “Did you doubt that too?” She feels a bit hypocritical for asking, as she also doubts that she could be the best thing that ever happened to _him_. 

“Sometimes,” he admits. He’s still looking up at her. The bags under his eyes are even more pitiful up close. “In the same way. But I mean--even _now_?”

“Especially now, I think,” she says. Her heart flutters and her head screams at her to take it back, because she can never have anything good that doesn’t get taken away. But she shoves those fears aside as best she can. “I _know_.” 

He makes a soft, broken sound in the back of his throat and just like that, she isn’t afraid anymore. Instead her heart is racing with the need to comfort him, to take that pain and desperation and vulnerability away. She searches her memory for any sense of what to do for him, wills that knowledge to come back, those gaps to fill in from wherever the nightmares keep on seeping through. But all that comes is blankness and doubt, not in him but in her own ability. She feels damaged, like the shell of a self she’s never fully known. If all that ever comes back is the pain, then what does that make her?

“I _know_ you are the best thing that has ever happened to me,” says Gamora fiercely, speaking over the doubts that are reverberating against the inside of her skull. She is not going to be defined by the things she fears, by the things she’s lost. She is _not._ If she can’t remember the good things about herself then she will just have to remake them. “Especially now, when -- When I need so much and you are here to give it to me.”

“You’re giving me things too,” he says. His voice is rough and kind of cracking and she feels the urge to hug him as tight as possible. “When you’re going through so much.” 

Her immediate instinct is to argue, but she curbs it because she senses that would be the opposite of helpful right now. She may not feel like she’s giving him anything but pain, but clearly he feels as though she is, and who is she to tell him otherwise when she is somehow comforting him? 

In an effort to comfort him more, she moves her hand in broad strokes along his back and feels him relax slightly against her. “Then we are both giving each other things. That sounds like a good…” She nearly says _relationship_ but that’s another word that feels too big for her throat, impossible to say. “Situation,” she finishes instead. 

Peter doesn’t respond except to nod, and suddenly she feels a wet spot on her shoulder. Concerned that she’s messed up yet again, she tilts her head to see his face and finds that he’s crying, biting his lip hard, likely to try to repress further tears. 

“Peter,” she breathes, every fiber of her being aching for him. “Sweetheart…” And now she _is_ remembering, she thinks. Not in facts, or images, but in feelings. The word feels right, she knows without question that she’s said it to him hundreds of times before, perhaps even more than that. She decides not to think too much about what saying it now means. 

Moving instinctively, she runs her fingers through his hair, at first just brushing it off his forehead. His skin is warm and a little bit damp against her palm, his hair surprisingly soft. Touching it only makes her want to do more and she starts stroking it slowly. He shudders against her, a sob tearing from his throat, and she feels the overwhelming certainty that she’s done this for him too, that this was one of their _things._

“I missed you,” he gasps, voice broken and hoarse with the tears he’s no longer even trying to fight. “I missed you, I missed you. _Fuck._ ”

“Me?” she whispers, unable to resist asking the question again. His grief is so clear, so palpable, and she knows that he never truly lost _her_ , at least not if he’s making a distinction. Then again, perhaps she shouldn’t assume that he is. “ _Me_ me? Or…”

“You,” he says immediately, before she’s even had a chance to finish. “All of you. Every you.”

“You have me,” she says, because it’s true, even though that feels big to say too. But that’s what she feels, that’s what the silver means. And despite her instinctive, panicked reaction the other day, she cannot imagine leaving. So after a few moments of stroking his hair, she says, “And I am not going anywhere.”

He makes a choked noise, but she can see the edge of his smile even though he’s still crying. “Thank you,” he breathes. 

“Thank _you_ ,” she says just as quietly. Then, before she can talk herself out of it, she bends her head and lays a soft kiss on his forehead, the way he’d done for her before. 

He makes another noise on a stuttering sigh, and when he tilts his head to look up at her, there’s more than just tears shining in his eyes; there’s an open, naked affection that makes her chest seize. 

“Do you think you can sleep now?” she asks, to avoid having to address that look, the way it makes her feel. It’s still too scary, too new to her. She feels his arms tighten around her, probably without him even meaning to, so she adds, “Here. With me.” 

“Yeah,” he whispers, his smile soft and sweet and grateful. “If that’s okay?”

“More than,” she says. She redoubles her efforts stroking his hair, hadn’t realized she’d slowed so much she’d basically stopped, and Peter practically melts against her. His eyes flutter, like he’s fighting to keep them open. “Go ahead. I’m here.” 

It only takes a few more seconds for his eyes to fully close. She waits for the steadying of his breathing and heart rate before she allows hers to follow.


	22. Chapter 22

Peter dreams of waking. 

It’s the deepest he’s slept in weeks, and on some level he senses that. Yet at the same time he dreams of morning, of being in a room on a planet where there’s sun coming through the window. It’s soft where it seeps through the curtains, and warm, just like Gamora’s body pressed against his, her hair against his cheek. He inhales the vaguely floral scent of it and then drifts into oblivion again.

The second time, he dreams of being in a pillow fort, the ground firm but not uncomfortable beneath him. Above, the stars are projected against the sheet, only they look so real that he knows they couldn’t possibly be coming from the holo. Gamora is here too, her fingers playing through his hair, her breath familiar where it brushes the side of his neck.

Then, after drifting yet again, he finds himself in their room on the Quadrant. He’s still dozing, hazily half-conscious. Gamora’s up before him as she so often is, seated in her chair at the vanity. She’s doing her hair, he knows -- He can smell the sweetness of the oils she uses and hear the familiar movements of her routine.

When he comes to the surface for the real, final time, he’s aware that it’s different from the dreams. He knows in the pit of his stomach that this is reality and for a moment he fights against it. The last thing he wants is to have those dreams ripped away from him, to wake into a world where Gamora knows none of these things.

He’s always been unable to fight reality, though it has been a while since he’s wanted to. For a long time as a child, he had dreams where his mother was not sick, or would get miraculously cured. After he got abducted, he’d have dreams where she was still alive and he was still on Earth with her, living out his life not on a dirty Ravager ship. After he met Gamora, he’d dream that she loved him, that they were together and she was doing things like dancing with him or holding him or kissing him. Waking up from those dreams always felt like the cruelest kind of torture, like his mind was showing him things it was impossible to have. 

Then after Ego, after that last sort of dream had become a reality, he’d always preferred waking because Gamora would actually be there with him. And now… 

He opens his eyes and he has to blink a few times to make sure he’s not seeing things. After a few seconds, he determines that this _is_ reality; that Gamora is there, lying on her side with her head in her hand, watching him. The night before comes flooding back to him and he smiles sleepily. 

“Good morning,” he murmurs, voice clogged with sleep. He recalls that they’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms and wonders at what point she’d woken up and moved away, but he’s grateful that she’s still here. She’s been watching him sleep, he guesses, as that was something she used to do, and he feels his smile expand.

“Good morning,” she echoes. 

"Did you sleep okay?" he asks, stretching a bit. He's careful not to touch her, to respect her space though all he really wants to do is reach out, hold her, bury his face in her shoulder. That's all he's wanted for the past few weeks. Well, all he's wanted for longer than that, but before when he wanted it, he could just _have_ it, so...But he is not going to impose that on her now. The last thing he wants to do is to push her too hard, to break this thing that's growing between them again. 

She nods and he thinks she's being truthful. "It was -- nice. Having you here."

"Yeah?" he asks, his heart absolutely leaping. For a moment all he feels is a rush of relief and joy. And then all at once, he remembers how last night actually went, remembers crying on her shoulder and telling her about the nightmare. Nice as it might have felt for him, he feels a surge of regret at showing her those parts of himself so quickly. "I'm -- still sorry, though. I didn't mean to impose."

“You didn't impose,” she says, eyebrows furrowed as if confused by the very statement. “I wanted you here. Unless— _you_ didn't want—“ 

“No!” he says quickly, before she can even finish that question; horrified that she even had that thought. “No, I really, really did. Do.” 

“Okay,” she says, visibly untensing. “Then stop apologizing.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, practically melting with affection for her. “How long have you been up?” 

“I—not long,” she says, and then for some reason a blush rises up in her cheeks. “I just woke up.” Then she adjusts, so she’s sitting up instead of lying on her side, and Peter suddenly understands; early on, she was embarrassed when he would catch her watching him sleep, despite the fact that he loved it and he did the same more than once. 

"Hey," he says softly, reaching out to touch her knee very lightly. He doesn't want to startle her, but more than that he doesn't want her to be feeling guilty for anything she's done. "It's okay."

Gamora tenses a bit at that, though, which probably shouldn't be unexpected either, though it makes his heart hurt. She arches an eyebrow in unmistakable challenge. "What's okay?"

"The fact that you were watching me sleep," says Peter, aware that he's taking a bit of a risk in calling it out directly. Most likely she'll deny it entirely, as she does with so many other things that embarrass her, no matter how obvious it might be that they're true. 

"I was doing no such thing," she says predictably, which makes him ache with an entirely different sort of nostalgia. Then she furrows her brow curiously. "But -- Did I often used to watch you sleep?"

Peter smiles softly. "Only at first. After that we tended to wake up at the same time."

"And that didn't bother you?" asks Gamora. "Having a daughter of Thanos watching you sleep?"

“Of course not,” he says sincerely. “I trust you more than anyone in the universe. Besides, Thanos is not your father, so you are not his daughter.” Despite how vehemently she’s said those very words in the past, when she was feeling self-deprecating she would still refer to herself as a daughter of Thanos. 

“I--yes,” she says, clearly wanting to both argue and not argue at the same time. 

“It’s sweet, when you watch me sleep,” he tells her. “And I do it sometimes too, you know.” He’d often tease her that she looks adorable when she sleeps, and she’d wrinkle her nose and tell him that she’s an assassin, and assassins are not adorable. But he has a feeling she’s not quite ready for that yet. 

“Oh,” she says, and that does seem to make her feel better. “Well… I may have been looking at you, and you happened to be asleep. That is not the same as watching.” 

Peter smiles fondly; that’s so very her. “All right. It was a coincidence, then.”

“Exactly,” she says firmly. She’s not quite crinkling her nose, but she still has an adorably stubborn look on her face that makes him want to lean over and kiss her. It’s a bit of a painful reminder that he can’t do that yet, but at the same time, _yet_ is so infinitely better than _never again_. He’ll wait as long as she needs. 

Peter hesitates for a moment longer, then decides to do what he really wants to do and holds out an arm to her. "Come here?"

She pauses too, but he can see the longing in her face. For half a second he wonders again how he ever doubted that she is herself, when everything about her, every nuance of gesture and expression, is so achingly familiar.

"Okay," she says finally, more an exhalation than a word, and stretches out against him in one fluid motion. 

She has her eyes pressed tightly shut, and she moves like she's afraid he'll take his offer back, like it might not be real. He remembers this too -- how desperately starved for any sort of affection she'd been, though her upbringing had made that even more difficult to admit. Peter wraps his arm around her immediately and runs one hand over her back, feeling the way her muscles start to loosen under his touch. 

"You know," he says after another moment, "you never did tell me why you couldn't sleep last night."

Gamora is quiet for a long moment, then sighs resignedly. "I was -- afraid it was all too good to be true."

“What do you mean?” he asks, though he can probably guess. Even if he didn’t know her so well from—well, before, he’d probably know. Still, though, he wants her to tell him, to be able to talk about it. That has always been an important part of their relationship. Last night was all about comforting him, so she’s more than due for her turn. 

“All of this,” she says, gesturing vaguely with her hand, sort of towards him, sort of towards the room. Then she lays it back on his chest, her fingers playing with a fold in his shirt. He’s a little mesmerized, watching them. “Being here, being free of Thanos… Being with you.” 

“I feel that too,” he tells her. He rubs his thumb up and down where it’s resting over one of her shoulder blades and feels her relax even more. 

“You do?” she asks. In contrast with the rest of her, her fingers tighten their grip on his shirt, practically clinging to him. He doesn’t think she realizes she’s even doing it; she rarely did. Does. 

“‘Course I do,” he murmurs. That was a lot of why he came to her last night, as well, the nightmare leading to a spike in that fear. “I thought I lost you. I thought I lost everything. And now you’re here. Sometimes when there’s not, you know...proof right in front of my face, it’s hard to believe.” 

“Exactly!” Gamora says. “Proof.” 

"What would proof look like for you?" he asks.

She considers his question, then shakes her head, her expression decidedly sad. Pained, almost. "I don't know. I don't know if that -- exists for me." She winces visibly, then continues in a rush, "I mean, having you here with me helps immensely. It does. But I still-- can't help thinking that for most of my life, good things have been dangerous. Traps. And I believe that what you -- what we had before was good, but look at how it ended for us both. I cannot help feeling like as traps go, that might have been the ultimate one."

“Oh,” he says sadly. He’s not surprised that she’s thinking that way, and even sort of sees her point; Thanos left her alone for all of those four years, to the point that she even felt secure in her freedom sometimes. “Well, hey, it’s all working out, okay? We’re here now. And Thanos isn’t. And, I know what you’re gonna say: that also feels too good to be true. And I feel that too. But we both watched him disappear to ashes. That scrotum chin is gone for good.” 

She half snorts, half laughs, a sort of disbelieving, amused sound that’s so familiar he could cry; not unlike a lot of things she says and does lately. “Peter.” 

“What?” he asks innocently, though he knows very well _what_. “His entire chin looks like a purple, wrinkly old—“ 

“ _Peter!_ ” She laughs, burying her face in his chest as she shakes with it. Or at least, he thinks that’s what she’s shaking with. After a few seconds when she doesn’t lift her head and he feels a little wet spot forming on his shirt, he frowns. 

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, alarmed. “I’m sorry—“ 

“I’m fine,” she says, her voice small. She lifts her head and she’s still smiling, though that is also small. “I just...I just remembered something.” 

"Oh," he says softly. "I was gonna ask you if you dreamed anything last night. Sorry I didn't -- quite get that far yet."

She shakes her head. "It's all right. You got there now. And -- no, I didn't dream anything last night once I had gotten to sleep. Which was odd to me in and of itself."

"Oh, Gamora," he sighs, heart aching again as he tightens his arms around her. He knows how hard it had been before for her to feel she deserved rest without nightmares. At first she'd been so reluctant to even try to improve them, convinced it would lead to something bad happening, some alternate form of punishment. "Maybe we should have made a pillow fort last night too."

"No," she says immediately. "That was not about me."

Peter blows out a breath and reminds himself that it can be about her now, if he doesn't take them off on too much of a tangent. "Okay. Okay. What did you remember?"

“I _just_ remembered it,” she tells him. “Not in a dream. I remembered more from...from the last time we saw each other. Before.” 

“Oh,” he breathes, heart pounding at the mere allusion to it. He swallows his instinctive desire to cry just from that and says, “What about it?” 

“You…” She trails off, but to his surprise she doesn’t appear overly distressed; she actually laughs a little. “Did you really tell Thanos you were gonna—blow that nutsack of a chin right off his face?” 

“Oh,” he says again, this time with an incredulous laugh of his own. It’s not funny, except that it kind of is. In the face of everything else that had happened in those few minutes, he’d managed to forget that until now. “Yeah, I guess I did say that. I wish I could’ve.” 

“People never speak to Thanos that way,” Gamora says quietly. “Spoke, I mean. I think...that I was a little bit amused even then. And...affectionate, toward you.” 

“Really?” he asks, suddenly really, _really_ needing to hear this. Gamora had told him already that she’d felt overwhelming love for him then, but he’s relieved that she might have had any other sort of positive thoughts or feelings during that time, mixed in with all the dread and grief. 

“Really,” she confirms. “I remember thinking that it was a very _you_ thing to do, in a moment like that.” 

"Well." He opens his mouth, closes it again, can't come up with anything to say to that. He feels like he ought to deny it or something, but if she's viewing it as a good thing...and she's not wrong. "Well yeah, it was. I mean, I guess it was."

"It was," says Gamora, so firmly that he really can't do anything but believe her. "I'm sure of it. And -- And you told me to go right. And then you _told_ me that you had told me."

"Yeah," he whispers, a fresh wave of guilt climbing the back of his throat and making him feel nauseous, though there's no judgment in her voice. She’d already remembered that part, though, and he knows she was upset by it in the moment, so there must be a reason for her to bring it up again. It adds to the sting of the fact that the last time they'd seen each other, he'd failed so completely. "I'm sorry."

"No," she says. "Don't be. Just -- Did you do that because you'd been planning on attacking Thanos yourself?"

“I—maybe,” he hedges, then sighs. “Yeah. I didn’t want…Well, I didn’t want what happened to happen.” 

Gamora shakes her head, which is a little difficult while she’s still lying on his chest but she manages it with grace, of course. “I could not bear it if he had…Well.” She doesn’t seem to be able to finish that thought, but he can finish it well enough for her in his head. 

“I wanted to protect you,” he whispers. He’d done such a terrible job of it, too. He probably wouldn’t have been able to do much better even if she had listened to him and gone right, though. 

“And I wanted to protect you,” she says. “I knew what you wanted to do. But...there is something else.” 

“Something else from that—moment?” he asks, tensing as he wonders what else she could be remembering from then, if it’s also something else that he’d forgotten up until now. 

“I think so,” she says. Her brow is furrowed, as if she’s trying to recall a memory that’s hazy and unclear; which, duh, he thinks — she is. “You… Thanos called you _the boyfriend_. And you told him you were a long-term booty call.” 

Peter blinks, trying to remember that too, like he's the one who's lost that memory. And really, he has in a different sort of way. There are some parts of it that won't seem to leave his thoughts no matter what he does, always there under the surface, waiting to assert themselves when he’s feeling vulnerable. But then there are others, like the ones she’s bringing up now, that feel almost new, details that escaped him in the sick, blind panic, worse than any he’d ever felt in his life.

“I -- guess I did say that, yeah.” It feels vaguely familiar now that he thinks about it, though more than that, he remembers Thanos calling him _the boyfriend._ Matter-of-fact. Smug. Like he’d _known_ all along, like all those years he and Gamora had thought they’d stolen out from under him had actually been a lie. That had been one of her fears all along, that Thanos had merely been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to punish her for having good things in her life. He’d never really believed it, but now...now he thinks she must have been right.

“All right,” says Gamora, her tone tense in a way that he can’t quite read. “‘Booty call’ means...not serious, right? Not -- exclusive. I know you said that before we were together, you would sometimes...do that?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, because it takes him a second to understand what her _real_ question is. Then his eyes widen when he realizes what she’s alluding to, and exactly why she’s suddenly so tense. “No, no, hey, I wasn’t serious! I mean--I was serious about you! I _am_ serious about you!” He takes a breath to steady himself, because babbling like a moron probably isn’t helping reassure her, at least judging by the way she’s still stiff against him and is looking at him with her brows raised. 

“I wasn’t serious about what I said to Thanos,” he says, a little calmer. “I meant what I said to you the other night, that it was a long, long time ago and never about you. You--we were never just a booty call, long-term or otherwise. I have always been -- devoted, like you said.”

“Then why did you say it to Thanos?” she asks, her voice measured, like she wants to believe him but she’s still wary. She hadn’t had any difficulty forgiving him for it when he’d told her about his old habits before, but now -- Well, now he can understand why suddenly hearing that in a memory would unnerve her. It must be nearly impossible for her to figure out what and who to trust right now, especially given all the mindfuck bullshit he knows Thanos has pulled all her life. 

“Because I’m crap at trash talk when I’m terrified,” he says bluntly, kicking himself for the fact that he’d said it then. “And that was probably the most scared I’ve ever been.” He’d thought that was obvious; and it _was_ , he’s sure, to him, and probably to Thanos, and to Gamora at the time, because she knew very well that they might as well have been married for all those four years. But Gamora right now doesn’t have all that experience, in spite of having some of the memories. 

“We were serious from the beginning,” he tells her. “Like, since a couple days after we met, basically.” 

Somehow that only makes her look more confused, though she doesn’t pull away or otherwise outright reject him. “I thought you said it took a while before we -- you know, talked about our feelings.”

“Oh!” says Peter, realizing that he’s still babbling. It’s really no surprise whatsoever that she’s so tense, that she keeps questioning these things when he keeps messing them up. “It did. But like -- It didn’t take us any time at all to decide that we’d be willing to die for each other. Or -- Or I mean -- I know that was true for me. It’s not like I asked you, but...But I gotta assume it was true for you too, since you took my hand when I had the Power Stone.”

Gamora stays silent for another moment, studying him in a way that gives him the sense she’s choosing her words very carefully, basically the opposite of what he’s been doing with his rambling. “I think -- I remembered something about that too. Did you -- Were we in space? And did you _give_ me your mask?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, probably too enthusiastically. But this is the perfect example, really. “That was before the you taking my hand thing, we were--” He balks at saying _Knowhere_ , swallows. “Ronan didn’t have the Stone yet, we were trying to keep it away from him, and Nebula was trying to get it _for_ him. She was also trying to kill you -- don’t worry, she’s totally gotten over that -- so she blew up the little vessel you were in. And you were, you know...out in space. So I went out and gave you my mask.” 

“How did you not die?” she asks, apparently perplexed. And if he’s not mistaken, he also hears a note of concern in her voice, even though this has already happened. 

“Yondu came and picked us up,” he says, realizing how difficult this is to explain in a quick and clear manner. “Because he wanted to kill me -- or, not really, but he wanted to _pretend_ to want to kill me, so I told him where we were so we could at least get inside a ship we could both breathe in.” 

He presses his lips together before he can say anymore about that, realizing that he’s babbling again. “So, yeah,” he says, deliberately slowly. “I couldn’t just let you die.”

“Even though we barely knew each other?” she asks. 

“Well, yeah,” he says, shrugging the shoulder she’s not resting her head on. “I already felt really close to you.” 

“But...why?” she asks. She raises her head to look up at him, some of her hair hanging into her face. He reaches out to brush it back without even thinking, just moving entirely on instinct. He doesn’t even realize what he’s done or what it means before he hears her soft intake of breath.

“Sorry,” he says quietly, immediately worried that he’s overstepped. He knows what her hair means to her, after all. “Sorry, I didn’t--” He breaks off as she catches the hand he’s just touched her hair with, laces their fingers and squeezes very gently.

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” she points out. “Actually, I didn’t say anything at all.”

“True,” he allows, smiling a bit at the fact that she _didn’t_ say it was bad, and also that she’s still holding his hand, keeping it so close that the backs of his knuckles are brushing against her cheek. Then something else occurs to him. “Well, but actually you _did_ say something. You asked me why I felt so close to you so quickly.”

“Oh,” says Gamora, her own lips quirking upward as he reminds her. “You’re right, I did. So are you going to answer?”

“Eh,” he teases. “Maybe later.” 

“Peter,” she says, using her free hand to poke him in the side. 

He giggles. “All right, all right.” He’s answered this question for her before, but of course she doesn’t remember. He’s more than happy to answer it again, though; in fact, it’ll be easier now than the first time, since at first he’d had trouble articulating why he fell for her right away beyond _You’re so cool and awesome and pretty_. He may have a slightly easier time now, after four years. 

“You were really genuine with me,” he says, with a dreamy little smile as he thinks about it. “And kind, and sweet. Even though you weren’t really trying to be, you just naturally _were_. Plus you were-- _are_ \--such a badass, and so cool. You listened when I rambled about music and stories from Earth you didn’t actually understand. It was super easy to fall in love with you, actually. I couldn’t have helped it if I’d tried.”

“I don't understand why you think so,” she admits. Before he can jump in and give her more reasons why she was so awesome right from the beginning -- he could keep going for hours, probably -- she continues, “But I am glad that you did.” 

“Yeah,” says Peter, feeling himself flush a bit at that. “Well.” Suddenly he wants more than anything to ask the same of her, to know what made her fall for him not just once but twice. He wants to hear her say it, even though he _knows_ that it’s true because he’s seen it in her silver. Still, that isn’t fair. He shouldn’t be pressuring her just to assuage his own insecurities. That’s the opposite of the kind of life he wants to show her. So instead he clears his throat and tries to refocus. “Do you wanna -- um...do anything today besides...you know, this?”

Gamora snorts softly and arches an eyebrow. “You mean we don’t habitually spend all day in bed?”

“I mean, sometimes we do,” he admits. “And those were totally awesome days. And we _could_ totally do that today too! But if we are, then we probably at least wanna go get some food, right?” He feels a pang at the thought that if they were in their usual quarters, they’d be able to have breakfast without even leaving the room. He is _not_ gonna start feeling sorry for himself over such small things. Not when he has Gamora back. Not when he’s just gotten another chance.

“Oh, yes!” she says enthusiastically. She clears her throat and attempts to temper the excitement in her voice, without success but likely only because he knows her so well. “If there is any bacon left, we could have some of that?” 

“Absolutely!” Peter says, making no effort to mask his enthusiasm. He squeezes her shoulders. “We’ll have all the bacon we have left!” 

“I would like to save some,” she says with an amused smile. “At least enough to get us through until we make another supply run.”

“I guess that’s all right,” he says, with feigned reluctance. 

“And then after,” she says slowly, “I’d like to work out. You could join me, if you’d like to?”

“Hell yes!” he says, mind swimming with memories of working out with her over the years. It was practically foreplay for them a lot of the time. He knows that’s not going to be the case this time, but no matter what, he’s always enjoyed working out with her. But in the interest of not pressuring her, he adds, “If that’s cool with you, of course.”

She smirks. “I wouldn’t have invited you if it was not _cool_ with me. But I’ll need to get ready, if we’re going to do that.” 

“Okay!” he says, though he doesn’t let go of her, because she’s made no move to get up. He’s so used to her getting ready in front of him, he’s not quite sure if that was a hint. “Do you want me to leave?” 

“No,” says Gamora, thoughtfully. “Not necessarily. But...you don’t have clothes here, do you?”

“Oh.” Peter blinks, realizing abruptly that they are in the room she’s using temporarily, and that all of this is so very new that he has yet to move a single one of his things in here. He hadn’t been thinking about that at all last night, when he’d been looking for her, still in the grips of a nightmare. “Right.”

“So you might want to get some of those,” she suggests. “Though I suppose I don’t know your habits. Maybe you eat breakfast in that all the time.”

He looks down at himself, at the too-tight boxers and t-shirt that features several holes and feels himself flush. She doesn’t seem bothered at all by his appearance, but it probably isn’t what she considers...well, presentable. Wait until she finds out about her own penchant for stealing and wearing his pajamas.

“I mean, sometimes I do,” he says honestly. “But I probably shouldn’t work out in it.” 

She smirks, and then coughs just a little bit, a blush dusting her cheeks. Peter thinks he knows her well enough to guess that she’s imagining him doing exactly that, and is either amused or aroused by it. Probably a confusing combination of both. 

“Unless you want me to,” he says, deciding to jump on her positive reaction. “I totally will.” 

“Perhaps another time,” she says, and this time she does laugh out loud. Then, to his disappointment, she lifts herself off of him and sits up. He’s comforted by the fact that he sees disappointment on her face too. “But this time, you should probably wear actual pants.” 

“Rain check, got it!” he says. While he’s got the motivation — and the lack of snuggles to keep him glued to the bed — he sits up and scoots off the mattress. “I’ll go get real clothes, just this once.” 

“I appreciate the sacrifice,” she says wryly. There’s genuine affection in her tone and her expression, which makes him feel warm. It _really_ makes him want to kiss her, so he heads for the door to remove himself from temptation. 

“I’ll be right back!” he informs her, and dashes out the door before he can change his mind and just stay there and stare at her forever. 

He’s moving in such a blind rush that he gets several yards down the hall before realizing that he’s headed in the direction of their shared quarters rather than the room where he’s been sleeping on his own. He stops so abruptly that he nearly falls over, muttering a curse at himself. He wants to get changed quickly and get back to Gamora, but he is _not_ going in there right now. It’s a farther walk, for one thing, and too many memories for another. Things _are_ already so much better than they had been the last time he was in there, but he still doesn’t need to tempt his brain.

Instead he redirects, ducks into his temporary quarters and then pauses again. As it turns out, he doesn’t have a whole lot of clothes in here. True, he’s brought over most of what he had been keeping on the Benatar, but that didn’t include much in the way of what he’d consider workout clothes. After rifling through a few piles of things, he finally settles on another shirt -- this one with the sleeves cut off -- and a pair of shorts that’s at least a couple inches longer than boxers. Not ideal, but it’ll just have to do because nothing else is going to delay him from going back to Gamora right now.

He’s so eager to get to her, he nearly trips over himself outside her door when he reminds himself to knock instead of just barging in. Most people on this team have an issue with knocking, an issue they’ve gotten around by just keeping their door locked all the time, but he doesn’t think Gamora has re-learned that yet. 

“It’s me!” he announces. “Peter! Star-Lord, legendary outlaw, Guardian of the Galaxy.” He waits an entire two seconds with no response before he frowns. “Gamora? You still in there?” 

“I was just waiting to see if you had any other titles to give yourself,” she says wryly from inside. “But you may come in, if that’s what you’re after.” 

He laughs, full of affection, and thinks for maybe the billionth time this week what a very _Gamora_ thing that was for her to say. 

“I have plenty more,” he declares, opening the door. “Best dancer in the universe comes to mind—“ That’s as far as he can get before all the power of speech flies from his throat, though, because then he catches sight of Gamora and he stops in his tracks. 

It’s not like she’s doing anything he’s never seen her do before, or like she’s dressed in a way he’s never seen before. All she’s doing is sitting on the edge of the bed in her typical workout clothing — a tank top and leggings — and running a brush through her hair. But the casual intimacy of it, of just seeing her do this typical Gamora routine, knocks the wind out of him. 

All at once, he has his own flash of memory: Those horrible hours on the Benatar after she had been taken from Knowhere, and the even worse, less determinate time on Titan, when he’d known for certain what Thanos had done. He’d been overwhelmed with thoughts of her then, of all the little moments like this one, the small, mundane intimacies that he’d almost begun to take for granted. It had been agony thinking of them then, and of how he would never have those things with her again. How all of those small wonders were gone. He’s had similar thoughts to a lesser extent since she’s been -- well, back, in the way that she is now -- but until right this second, he’s more or less pushed them to the back of his mind. A survival mechanism he hadn’t even realized he’d been using, and now all he feels is the overwhelming urge to cry.

“Peter?” her voice breaks in, soft but urgent, filled with concern. Her hand is frozen on the handle of her brush now, mid-stroke in her hair.

“Uh,” he breathes, trying and failing to arrange his face back into an expression of casual ease. “You uh -- Is my fashion sense the problem?”

“Problem?” she asks, clearly confused because he’s a dumbass who talks out of his dumb ass, something they’d _just_ discussed. He watches as she gives him a once-over, scanning him up and down. Her eyes definitely linger on his thighs and his arms, and he tries to let her obvious interest distract him from his own emotions. 

It works like, maybe a _little_ , but she’s still got that damn brush in her hair, though it’s slipped down a bit, and it’s making his throat too tight to speak. 

She somehow figures it out without him needing to say anything else, though, because her eyes widen after a moment. “Oh. No, there’s no… You stopped mid-sentence, and you looked like… Well, like you saw a ghost.” She finally lowers the brush all the way and she’s stopped brushing her hair, instead twirling the brush around between her fingers in a sort of nervous habit that’s familiar to him. 

“No, no,” he says. “I just…” He sighs, and in the interest of _not_ talking out his ass, he makes himself take the time to close the distance between him and the bed and sit down next to her, not quite close enough that they’re touching. “Remember how I told you I used to help you with your hair?” 

“Yes,” says Gamora easily. Then she pauses, her expression contemplative again. “I must admit, when you first told me that, I found it hard to believe. I’m -- sure you know that my hair is -- important to me. That allowing anyone to touch it is very intimate.”

He nods. “I know. I’ve always known. Or I mean -- You told me, like, a couple weeks after we met.”

She looks surprised now. “You mean -- before we were -- Before we had talked about our feelings?”

“Yeah,” says Peter, smiling as he remembers that time, how simultaneously similar and different it had felt to the way things are right now. “Though I guess you were -- you know, already silver. We were dancing and I touched your hair. Just -- put some of it behind your ear. But you had this big reaction -- Not in a bad way, just -- bigger than I’d expected. So we talked about it, and you told me about your homeworld’s traditions.”

“That must have been a large gesture of trust on my part,” she says, looking surprised at herself, but not displeased. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah, it definitely was, and I could tell it was. Which was exactly why it meant so much to me that you did.”

“I am sure it meant a lot to me that you listened,” she says quietly. “That you wanted to know.” 

“I wanted to know everything about you,” he says, then catches himself. “I still do.” He’s learning more and more that he doesn’t know everything about her, no matter how much he thought he did. That doesn’t distress him anymore though, not like it did when he’d first made the realization. If he gets to spend the rest of his life learning new things about her, he’ll be the luckiest guy in the galaxy. 

Gamora looks a little shy at that admission, but still pleased, he thinks. “Is that why you--?” She doesn’t finish the question, but gestures towards the door, towards where he’d frozen like a moron.

“Yeah,” he admits. “I...Well, you know I thought I’d lost you. And I thought I’d lost everything about--this.” He swallows, because even though he knows now that he didn’t lose her, that time when he thought he did is probably his least favorite thing to think about. “I always loved watching you do your hair. And I loved helping you with it. I had a dream about it last night, actually.”

“You did?” she asks, clearly a request for details. 

He nods, his voice going a bit dreamy as he thinks about it. “It was just--like this, basically. I was just watching you brush it in the morning.” 

"And that was -- a nightmare?" she asks, looking confused again and a little alarmed. "Because you thought you had lost -- me? Or--"

"No!" Peter interrupts, because as much as he does not want to start babbling again, he is also _not_ going to let her think that this is a bad thing, or even consider that he's wanting her to be...well, anybody else. "No, no, it was awesome! Not a nightmare at all!"

"Oh." She blinks, looks momentarily disoriented by that. "I don't -- normally think of any dreams as being good."

"I'm sorry," he breathes, because he can't think of anything else to say. "I'm sorry, I -- want to change that for you."

"Well," says Gamora, though she sounds about as lost as he feels, "maybe you are already doing that."

“You did start to have good dreams eventually,” he tells her. “And you had fewer nightmares.” 

“You said we had a routine for my nightmares,” she says searchingly. 

“That helped, yeah,” he says. “And I think just...getting used to being free, and being happy. That probably was most of it.” 

“And being with you,” she says, half a question. It makes his heart jump. 

“I hope I helped,” he hedges. Gamora has told him in the past that he helped immensely, even though the nightmares never completely went away, but he doesn’t want to sound cocky about something like this, during such a serious moment. 

“I’m certain you did,” she says quietly. She’s contemplating her brush again, and after a few moments of silence she looks up at him and holds it out. “Would you like to braid my hair for me?”

“Wha--really?” he asks, trying not to sound over-eager. He can’t smother his smile, though. 

“Yes, really,” she says, holding the brush out farther towards him, a small smile of her own dancing at the corner of her mouth. 

“I’d love to,” he says vehemently, taking the brush from her hands as if it’s made of fragile glass. She turns around when he does, crossing her legs on the bed and facing away from him so he’ll have an easier time. 

He pauses, his hands shaking and his throat tight. He wants this _so much_ that for a moment he fears he won’t be able to do it, will end up messing it up somehow, disappointing her or hurting her or -- Then again, he reminds himself, he felt this same way the _first_ first time she let him brush her hair. It had turned out fine then, and he’d had no experience whatsoever. She’d had to teach him everything about it, from the way to brush her curls -- ends first, then working up higher on her head -- to the intricate braids she loves so much. And he’d learned it all just fine, just like he’d learned so many other things about her. About how to _be with_ her. That’s all he has to do now, and he’s already got a head start.

“Peter?” she prompts, glancing at him over her shoulder. She has that same soft, concerned look, and he swallows hard.

“I’m good,” he promises, and this time he sincerely means it. Taking a deep breath, he sets the brush down for a moment and wraps both hands around her hair, gently arranging it all to lie flat against her back. Then he feels around for the familiar strand of her miniature braid and slides it back over the other side of her shoulder, so that it doesn’t get caught in the strokes of the brush. “You know, you’ve got all kinds of oils and other products for your hair. If you want -- When you’re ready, we could look through those, decide which ones you wanna bring in here?”

“I would like that,” she whispers. He smiles because he knows that took effort for her to admit; early on, it was often difficult to get Gamora to admit to things she wanted for herself, especially desires she’d labeled as _unnecessary_ or _frivolous_. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” he reiterates, then starts slowly brushing her hair. Though she’d already brushed some of it, there is the occasional tangle that he treats with all the care in the galaxy. 

Neither of them speak for a bit. It’s all he can do to keep his hand steady right now. He’s done this for her countless times before, and even once that she has the memory of, that she’s experienced. But this feels so much different than cleaning and brushing her hair after the Xurcoils attack. She’d been intensely vulnerable then, but this is intimate in a different way; the sort of casual, domestic intimacy he’d missed so much. 

“When did I accumulate all of those hair products?” she asks after a few moments. He wonders if she also needed the time in silence to gather herself; he thinks probably yes. 

“Kinda gradually over the years,” he tells her. The brush is running through her hair smoothly now, but he keeps going anyway, enjoying the ritual. “But you got the basics pretty soon. And I got you some of the more extravagant stuff that you wouldn’t buy for yourself.” 

“To commemorate special occasions?” she asks, and he’s reminded suddenly of his disastrous first attempt at touring the ship, at how hard he’d been trying to force her to remember things that she so clearly wasn’t ready for.

“Yeah,” he says distractedly, then swallows again. “But -- hey, I’m sorry about that. Not about getting you things for special occasions! Definitely not that part. But that I was -- so focused on trying to make you remember before. That was -- a pretty big asshole move on my part.”

“I think...I understand,” she says, only a little hesitant. She glances over her shoulder at him again, smiling shyly before turning back, careful not to mess up the way he’s got her hair laid out.

“You do?” He probably shouldn’t be surprised by that; Gamora’s always been brilliant. And yet somehow he finds himself in awe of the idea that she could empathize with his mistakes at all. “I -- How do you mean?”

She shrugs. “You saw that I was hurting and you desperately wanted to help. I have often felt the same way toward you, and I certainly didn’t know how to do it effectively.”

“Yeah, exactly!” he says enthusiastically, so pleased that she understands so well that it takes him a second for the rest of what she said to sink in. “Wait, really? You have?” 

“Quite a lot,” she says. She’s sitting perfectly still, but he can see that her fingers are playing along her knee, just twitching ever so slightly. “I know you’ve been in pain. I wish I knew how to help you the way you need. The way I used to, apparently.” 

“We learned as we went,” he tells her, which is true. “It’s not like I just automatically knew how to make you feel better when we first met. Sometimes I still don’t. Clearly. I’m still learning. Re-learning. We both are!” 

“You are good at it,” she says quietly. Unspoken there is _And I am not_. Luckily, he’s gotten much better at reading between her lines, even if that’s also something he’s still learning as he goes. 

“So are you,” he says. “Even if you don’t know it yet. I mean, yeah, I might know more now than you do, but I’ve got kind of an advantage there. Speaking of that, do you have a hair tie?” 

“Yes,” she says. If she’s thrown by the apparent change of subject, he can’t tell. She holds one up over her shoulder. 

He takes it and wraps it around his own wrist, so it’ll be ready when he needs it. The first time she’d instructed him to do that, he remembers, it had seemed ludicrous, the thing so small around _her_ wrist that he’d been absolutely certain it would cut off his circulation. He’d done it, though, because he’d trusted her absolutely, and had been pleasantly surprised to find it stretchy enough to accommodate easily. Now he finds the sensation of it comforting, part of this familiar ritual.

“What kinda braid you want?” he asks, running the brush through her hair a couple more times for good measure. It’s already plenty soft and shiny, but he feels like he might die if he doesn’t continue touching it right now.

“You know how to do more than one type?” asks Gamora, sounding equal parts surprised and pleased. 

“Oh baby,” Peter drawls, grinning as he decides to just lean into this all the way. “You taught me _all_ the braids. Think of me as your braid protege.”

She laughs softly at that, which pleases him immensely. “Well, I usually don’t do anything too fancy when I train. But I assume you know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” he says fondly, thinking of the way pieces of her hair tends to fall out of her braid by the time she’s done working out. It’s a windswept sort of look that always looks gorgeous on her; but then again, everything does. “But sometime you should let me show off all the kinds you taught me.” 

“I look forward to it,” she says, a little shyly but sincerely, and Peter practically glows. 

Deciding it’s finally time to actually braid her hair, he puts down the brush and grabs a small section of hair from the top of her head, dividing it into three smaller sections. He just can’t resist doing something _a little_ fancier than a normal braid. This should still be fine to work out in; and hey, if it’s not, he’ll just have to re-do it. 

“I see you’re showing off right now,” Gamora says, but she doesn’t sound annoyed or like she wants him to do a plain braid instead. In fact, she sounds amused, even pleased. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says innocently. “This is clearly the best type of workout braid there is.”

“Oh, is it?” she asks, amused smirk apparent in her voice. 

“Mmhmm,” he hums decisively. “I remember this kind from Earth, actually. I mean, I didn’t know how to _do_ it before you taught me, but I know my mom used to wear it like this. She called it a French braid.” 

"Did your mother also value her hair?" asks Gamora, her tone gentle, curious. The same way he remembers it being that first time on Knowhere, when he'd told her about his music, when he'd first felt truly close to her. The same way it's been so many times. He loves it, and it also makes his throat feel tight again. 

"Yeah," he says thoughtfully. They've talked about hair traditions -- at least to the extent that he remembers them -- on Earth before, but never in quite this exact context. "I mean -- it wasn't like -- basically sacred the way hair is for your people. But she was proud of it, I think. She had this long, really curly hair, kinda the same color as mine."

"I can see why she was proud," says Gamora. "Your hair is very nice." 

Peter grins at that, feeling his cheeks flush a little. He knows probably better than anyone what a high compliment that is from her. Still, he has to tell her the rest of this. "Her hair fell out, though, after she got sick. I think it was from the treatment. One time I heard her crying about it in the bathroom, and then the next day she'd shaved all the rest of it off. I decided I was gonna shave mine too to make her feel better, but my grandpa caught me in the bathroom with his razor. I only got to do this one little spot in the back."

“Oh, Peter,” Gamora says sadly. She turns her head slightly like she wants to look at him or turn to him, but he’s still got her hair in his hands. He’s almost glad; he’s emotional enough just from her voice. “That was very sweet of you to try.” 

He shrugs one shoulder, the pleasure from her compliments mixing with the sorrow from the memory to create a strange swirl of emotions inside him. He doesn’t deserve the praise for this, he thinks, when he failed to shave his head like he’d wanted to. “My mom cried when my grandpa made me tell her,” he says quietly. “But--she was smiling. She said it made her feel better that I’d tried to do that. But she also told me never to do it again.” 

“She also sounds very sweet,” Gamora says softly. “You must have gotten that from her as well.”

Peter swallows, that mix of emotions intensifying until he has to blink back tears. Being compared to his mother always makes him heady with pride, but he always doubts that he could ever actually live up to the comparison. “Yes, well.” He clears his throat and ties off the end of Gamora’s braid. “Your braid is done. Do you wanna--?”

He’s about to ask her if she wants to see it -- it looks pretty good, if he says so himself -- but before he can finish the question, Gamora’s already turning around and wrapping her arms around him in a somewhat awkward hug. 

Peter exhales in a rush, completely incapable of stopping the tears from falling now. He shifts instinctively to brace one hand behind himself, wrapping the other arm around her so that she can move closer, hold him at a less awkward angle. She doesn’t even pause, just moves with him like they’ve done this a thousand times before. And really they have, but does _she_ remember? It doesn’t matter, he decides, burying his face in her shoulder. She’s here and she’s holding him and for an indeterminate span of time, all that matters is how goddamned much he loves her. 

She’s still holding him when he manages to regain enough composure to pull back a bit and look at her, to catch that familiar sweet softness in her eyes. She’s smiling gently too.

“What was that for?” asks Peter, touching her cheek very lightly. 

“You know what,” says Gamora, leaning into his hand. Then she reconsiders, shakes her head a bit. “Wait, no. It was -- It was just because I wanted to. And I get to have things that I want now.”

“Yes,” he breathes, throat tight again as he resolves to spend as long as it takes to give her everything she wants in the universe. Starting, probably, with breakfast. “Yes, you do.”


	23. Chapter 23

Contraxia is… _a lot_ , Gamora thinks. Club-like planets are fairly common throughout the galaxy, and in that way Contraxia isn’t really special. But this may be the--well, flashiest of all the vulgar planets she’s ever been to. Either that or her sensitivities have changed. 

“Is the entire planet really like this?” she asks Peter as they walk along the snowy street. On one side of them, it’s nearly barren except for docked ships and more snow, but on the other they pass by clubs and shops, all with bright, flashing signs advertising various unsavory things available for purchase. A good half of those things are sex bots. 

“Yep,” he confirms. He seems pretty unaffected by the whole planet. “All the places I’ve ever been to on it, anyway.” 

“It is,” Nebula confirms. She and Rocket are walking slightly ahead of them, but of course she’s able to hear them. “The whole miserable planet is covered in nothing but snow and sex robots.”

“And some shady shops,” Peter points out, as they pass a section of outdoor stalls selling all manner of questionable goods. They’d lost Drax and Mantis a few blocks back at yet another outdoor market because of a stall selling knives that Gamora has to admit also briefly tempted her.

This particular outdoor market is more horrifying than tempting, though. There are no weapons in these stalls as far as she can see -- not even shoddily made ones, or ones that are clearly stolen. These brokers appear to be dealing in drugs, with stalls advertising pills, elixirs, and even some inhalants. Each one bears an advertisement with cartoon caricatures of various races utilizing the wares, looking thrilled to be delirious or glowing or in one particularly unbelievable case, floating several feet above the ground without any clear anatomical or technological basis for being able to do so. A few of the products are bubbling or letting off steam, and Gamora finds herself steering her walking path farther away from it, lest she experience any unintentional contact effects. 

“As if they would give any of it away for free,” Nebula scoffs, apparently noticing her caution.

Gamora studiously ignores her sister and turns to Peter, trying to keep her voice neutral. “Have you...come here often?” It isn’t as though she’s forgotten the things he’s told her about his past, but it feels different seeing the evidence of it here. She doesn’t care so much about the black market sales, or even the drugs -- after all, she’s guilty of _so_ much worse under Thanos’ hand. But the sex bots...Suddenly she finds herself wondering how often he’s utilized _their_ services.

“Only with the Ravagers,” he says quickly. Her attempt at keeping her voice neutral apparently failed, because he’s holding his hands up as if pleading, or in defense. “When I was younger. I haven’t been in years, since way before I met you! And I was never into this type of thing.” He waves his hand towards their surroundings. She’s not sure if he means just the drugs in particular or all of the _types of things_ this planet has to offer. Either way, his response makes her feel guilty for asking. 

“You don’t have to...I am not judging you for your past,” she says. “Mine was far worse than anything you could have done on this planet.” 

“I really never liked this place, though,” he says. He sounds honest; not that she thinks he would lie to her, but she would certainly not _like_ to tell him something about herself that she thought he might judge her for. Not that he has ever done that, either. “I always thought the Ravagers were really gross for liking this kinda thing.” 

He gestures again off to their side, and this time he definitely is indicating the sex bots. They’re passing another club now, with bots on the balcony of the upper floor, dancing in ways she supposes are enticing to people who are into that kind of thing. It just makes Gamora a little sad. 

“Ask him about the time he asked a sex bot for a hug,” says Nebula. She tosses it over her shoulder, perfectly casual, not even missing a beat as she leads them past the shadiest stall yet, this one advertising do-it-yourself cybernetic implants. Gamora is more than glad for the distraction her sister has just provided.

Rocket snorts. “Really? He _would_.”

Peter practically trips over his own feet, nearly loses his balance in the snow until Gamora grabs one of his shoulders to steady him. He’s bright red, which has nothing to do with the cold air around them, though he _does_ appear to be choking on said air. Or maybe just his own disbelief. “I -- You -- _how_ did you --”

Nebula scoffs. “Ironically enough, my sister gave me the gift of that story. So now I am here to pay it forward and tell you to give it back to her.”

“No,” Gamora says immediately, horrified by how embarrassed Peter seems, though she is also undeniably curious. And clearly he _did_ tell it to her at one point, but… “No, no, you don’t have to do that. Definitely not right now.”

“Oh yeah,” says Rocket. “Yeah, you do gotta do it right now.”

“Aren’t we close to that shop yet?” Peter asks, his voice a little high-pitched. “I wouldn’t wanna make us late meeting your contact.”

“We have more than enough time for you to tell that story,” Nebula says. She’s definitely amused by this.

“You don’t have to,” Gamora tells him again firmly, shooting a glare at Nebula. She just shrugs one shoulder and smirks. 

“I don’t mind telling _you_ ,” he says. Then he aims a glare of his own at Rocket. “Here, let’s slow down. You two go ahead.”

“Aw, I wanna hear the embarrassing story!” Rocket protests. He’s even more amused than Nebula, or at least more openly so. 

Nebula rolls her eyes and gestures for Rocket to continue forward. “Come on. I’m sure they’re going to be gross and mushy, anyway.”

“When are they _not_?” Rocket mumbles, but thankfully he continues walking, allowing Peter and Gamora to take a slower pace and get far enough behind them that he won’t be able to hear their conversation. 

“Peter--” she begins, about to tell him once again that he doesn’t have to do this. 

“I’ve already told you,” he points out. He’s smiling gently, but he’s still blushing furiously. “So I really don’t mind.”

“Still,” she insists, feeling awful. “I… I cannot believe I would tell Nebula something that you clearly told me in confidence. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” he assures her. He puts his hand on her shoulder, which feels warm even through the glove he’s wearing and the cold around them. “She’s your sister. I understand.” 

He sounds completely sincere, despite the fact that it feels, from her end, like such a violation. Then again, she thinks about the things she has already shared with Nebula, about how initially at least that had felt safer than confiding in him. True, Peter had been a stranger, but Nebula had been....what? Not quite an enemy, but certainly not a confidante. 

Then another thought occurs to her. “Wait. So...Before -- I was… _with_ you, I also confided in Nebula. Did you have someone like that too? _Do_ you have someone like that?” She thinks of Kraglin, who Peter had introduced as being like a sibling growing up with the Ravagers, but they don’t seem to be close in the same way she feels toward Nebula.

He opens his mouth, closes it again, his face falling a bit, though not in an angry way. When he swallows, she can see his throat working. “No, I -- I just -- That was you.”

She feels the powerful urge to hug him again, an impulse she’s feeling increasingly often lately. She doesn’t act on it this time, though, aware of both the fact that Rocket could still see and turn it into an opportunity for mockery, and also the fact that they’re still surrounded by those damn sex bots. Instead she meets his gaze and says, “And I am right here.”

His answering smile is small but genuine, and full of an emotion that makes her throat tight. “You are,” he says quietly. He clears his throat; she wonders if it feels as clogged as hers. “So. Um. You should know this was a long time ago. I was only nineteen when it happened.”

“I am not going to judge you,” she tells him again. No matter what the contents of the story are, she knows that to be true. It’s not like she thinks any less of him for any of the things he did in his past; she only feels inadequate at the reminders of how much more experience he has than she does, even if this story is apparently an embarrassing one.

“I know,” he says, but he’s definitely still blushing. “It’s just, you know. Embarrassing.” Before she can offer him more reassurance -- though she’s not sure _how_ she can without remembering this story -- he takes a deep breath and plows on. “So, I went through a phase in my late teenage years where I drank a lot. Like, way too much.”

“I do not remember meeting the Ravagers,” Gamora says, “but I can imagine where you picked up that habit.” 

He snorts. “Yeah. I’d been drinking with them since they abducted me. But after I moved out of the Eclector, I got really bad. Besides doing jobs with them, basically all I did with my life was go out to bars and clubs and get drunk and...well, hook up with people.” 

“All right,” says Gamora, trying to keep her voice even and the insecurity out of it. It’s still hard for her to picture him doing that, but then again...she knows all too well how difficult it can be to find a new direction in a difficult environment. “I know you -- you mentioned that.”

“Yeah,” says Peter. “I was just...really lonely, you know? But I wasn’t, like, about to admit that because the Ravagers don’t exactly raise you to be smart about that shit. And it’s also not super easy to make real friends when the world knows you as a Ravager, so…” He shrugs helplessly. “Drinking and hooking up.”

“I understand,” she says, though it occurs to her that she has only really become aware of her own profound loneliness after the fact. 

“Okay,” he continues, still with that slightly pressured tone that tells her he’s powering through his own embarrassment. “So Yondu brought the whole crew to Contraxia. As like...I dunno, some kind of a treat for a job he thought we’d done well. And I’d been on the job, so I came along even though I was technically living on my own. But all the guys were shacking up with the bots. And I’d never been into that before, I’d always wanted to hook up with...you know, _not_ robots. But then I was listening to Taserface going on and on about all the weird kinky stuff you could do with the bots, and it kinda -- it occurred to me that I could probably ask one for _anything_ that I wanted...”

“And what you wanted was to ask one for a hug,” she says, like she already knows. Which she does, of course, because Nebula had only just said that. But some part of her feels as though she would have known regardless. 

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Peter says. He rubs the back of his neck a few times. “But it wasn’t...I don’t know...a super conscious thought, I guess. I wasn’t thinking like, I’m gonna go pay a sex robot to give me a hug. I just thought, you know… Maybe I could talk to it for a little while, or something. That I could tell it stuff without it turning around and telling the rest of the Ravagers. I know, that’s super pathetic.”

“It is not pathetic,” she says gently. She rests her hand on his arm, which is kind of awkward because they’re both still walking and his arm is swinging, but she has to offer him some kind of comfort when he’s obviously feeling so vulnerable. 

Peter makes a noncommittal sound, but he offers her a small smile before it falls when he starts talking again. “I felt really gross about it anyway. Especially because all the Ravagers saw me going up to the room with the sex bot, and a couple of them applauded and yelled gross stuff. I already regretted it before we even got in the damn room.” 

“What happened when you did?” she prompts. 

“When we got in the room?” asks Peter, stalling a bit now. He scratches the back of his neck again, which is making his hair stick up at odd angles she’s starting to regard as his Awkward Hair. She wonders if she thought of it that way before. Probably, if all the other same-things are true.

“Yes,” she says, giving him a smile of encouragement. Though she hopes he still knows that he’s free to change his mind and _stop_ telling her the story whenever he chooses to, if that is what he chooses. Peter has given her the privilege of choice in ways she has never imagined possible. She will do anything to give him the same.

“Well,” he says, “she started taking off her clothes. You know, the typical thing -- Or at least, I assume that’s the typical protocol. But I told her to stop, so she did, but then she told me to take off my clothes and gave me some of her stock flirty lines --”

The memory slams into her so abruptly, so vividly, that it’s almost like an out of body experience. All at once, she sees herself in a room on the Quadrant with Nebula -- guest quarters, but ones her sister has begun to inhabit more often than not. She is stretched out on the floor, her back against the bed where Nebula is reclining. They’re passing a bottle of Asgardian liquor back and forth, enjoying its effects immensely. 

_”And then he asked the bot if they could just talk,”_ she remembers saying, giggling like a child, filled with the warmth of the liquor and overwhelming affection for her sister, for Peter…

Who is still talking, not in a memory, but right now. “And then the bot was like, how extreme do you want the dirty talk? And I told her no, no dirty talk! Just like regular talking, like a conversation. And she said she didn’t understand what I meant. It was very robot-y, you know? Like _does not compute_.”

Gamora blinks, and her focus shifts back inside her own head, as she takes the bottle back from Nebula. _“And the bot kept trying to do physical stuff with him”_ , she’d told Nebula, right after drinking straight from the bottle and shuddering at the taste. _“So Peter just asked for a hug!”_

_“That is the most pathetic thing I have ever heard,”_ Nebula had informed her.

_“No!”_ she’d protested adamantly. She remembers vividly craning her neck to look at Nebula, rather than just turning her body, and feeling a dizzying head rush that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. _“It’s not pathetic, Nebula, it’s sweet! He’s so sweet.”_

Nebula had rolled her eyes so far that Gamora remembers thinking they might roll all the way out of her head, and then making herself giggle with that thought. _“Somehow you are even more disgusting about him when you’re drunk. I didn’t think that was possible. Maybe I should take this away.”_

Then she’d made to take the bottle out of Gamora’s hands, and she’d playfully clutched it closer to her chest, her smile making her cheeks ache. _“You wouldn’t dare!”_

But she _would_ dare. She remembers Nebula grabbing for the bottle and nearly making herself fall off the bed, which had caused Gamora to collapse into another fit of giggles. Even Nebula was smiling wider than she ever remembers seeing. 

“So then,” Peter is saying, as Gamora’s awareness snaps back, “the bot was like, are you gonna take your clothes off or not?” 

"You told it no," says Gamora, speaking from memory now, her voice sounding a bit surreal in her own ears. "You said you wanted both you and it to keep your clothes on, but that you _would_ take a hug."

Peter stops walking abruptly, and she pauses with him, feeling as though this moment is some sort of ethereal string stretched between them, tethering them together through time. Though it's also making her heart beat very quickly, making it difficult to breathe. He feels the same, judging by the look of desperate hope on his face. 

"The bot hugged you," Gamora continues, her voice barely more than a whisper now. She's remembering it in odd sort of nested layers: she remembers telling Nebula, but she remembers _him_ telling her now too, lying in bed together, naked in every way right down to their souls. "But it also tried to -- to grope you. You told it to stop and you pushed it away so strongly that it ended up going into its idle mode for the rest of the hour while you -- you sat on the bed and cried." She pauses, swallows hard. "I didn't tell Nebula that. Or anything beyond the fact that you had asked it for a hug."

Peter’s gaping at her, surprised and--happy, she thinks. No, she’s sure. There’s an amazed smile on his face when he manages to close his mouth, and he looks like he might cry again, only this time from happiness. It’s not as though this is the first thing she’s remembered from those years she’s missing, but it is one of the most mundane, and yet extraordinary, ones. “You...you remember that?”

She nods. “Yes. I was drunk. Nebula and I were drinking a very strong alcohol. From Asgard. I was bragging about you. About how sweet you are.” 

“Oh,” he breathes. It’s less a word than it is an exhale. He looks overwhelmed and happy and affectionate and all the things she’s feeling. She also really wants to close the distance between their faces right now, to express all of those emotions in a physical way. She wonders if Peter is feeling that too. 

“Hey, morons!” Rocket calls from quite some distance away, making Gamora jump back. She hadn’t realized that she and Peter had actually moved closer together until she moves away and feels a rush of cold air in the new space between them. “Are you coming with us, or are you gonna go ask a sex bot for another hug?” 

"He will never need to do that again," Gamora declares fiercely, immediately filled with a burning desire to defend him, to protect him from sadness and humiliation. 

Peter gapes at her again, that same expression that's so full of reverence and joy that it's almost pained. She can't do nothing, so she finds his hands with both of hers, taking them and squeezing through the layers of gloves between them. He grins, then clears his throat, and she watches as his usual facade slides right back into place. It's impressive, really, how quickly he gets the armor back on. 

"Dude, you gotta stop with the morons thing!" Peter calls to Rocket, his voice filled with annoyance now. "It was bad enough when you did it in front of Thor!"

"Oh, I got five years of practice on you!" Rocket retorts. "Five years tellin’ the whole galaxy about all the morons I used to know. I ain't never stopping now!"

"Children," Nebula interrupts. "We are going to be late if you don't stop, and in that case I'll kill you all myself. I do recall you made a promise not to damage my standing with my contact."

“Would ya calm down?” Rocket says disdainfully. Gamora and Peter have finally started walking again, and now they’re close enough to hear without him raising his voice. “We’re here already.” He gestures to the building they’re standing just in front of. It’s small and rickety and looks similar to the other buildings that surround it. The windows are tinted too dark to see through, and the flickering neon sign that must say something like the shop’s name is too dark for her to make out more than two letters. 

“This is it?” Peter asks, an eyebrow raised. Gamora realizes belatedly that they’re still holding hands, though only with one each now instead of both. She has zero desire to pull away. 

“Not real impressive, huh?” Rocket says, as if in agreement. He turns to Nebula. “I don’t get why you like this chick so much. I can build way better weapons than her.” 

“Her weapons are much more sophisticated than your simple explosions,” Nebula says, glaring at him. “And she builds much more than weapons.” 

She sounds genuinely admiring in a way she so rarely does, which spikes Gamora’s curiosity about this person. But before she can ask anything about her, Nebula has turned on her heel and marched into the shop, forcing the rest of them to follow. 

The inside of the shop is...surprising. It’s a lot darker than Gamora would have expected, even given the outside, because everything on Contraxia is so _flashy_. This shop is understated, but also creepy in a way that reminds her somewhat of a lair, though less ominous than Sanctuary. It’s small, cramped with shelves full of objects like blasters and ship parts and what seem to be cybernetic implants. 

“You’re late, Nebula,” a deep voice says. From behind one of the shelves a woman dressed in all black emerges, of a humanoid species Gamora doesn’t recognize. She’s got dark purple skin and hair only on one side of her head that’s nearly the same shade, coiled into several thick braids that reach down to her knees. There are piercings in her eyebrows, her nose, her ears, even one on her lip. And she’s smirking. “You also brought company.” 

“It is their fault we are late,” says Nebula dismissively. “And I did not _bring_ them, they insisted on following me here.”

Which is...arguably true, Gamora thinks. Nebula _had_ wanted to come to this meeting alone, to speak with her contact in private about any shared information regarding the Sons. But Rocket had been vehemently opposed to that -- probably because he’s jealous of Nebula thinking more highly of another weapons expert’s skills, she realizes now. For her own part, Gamora had insisted on coming along because she had disliked the idea of her sister in possible danger without her. And because stopping the Sons is her mission as well. And Peter...well he’d made the same claim about the Sons, and she doesn’t doubt that’s true, but she also has the feeling that he’d been reluctant to leave _her_ in the path of potential danger.

The woman shakes her head. “Oh, Nebula. For one who claims to care nothing for others, you certainly seem to _care_ an awful lot.” She laughs softly. “Are you going to introduce me?”

Nebula shakes her head and sighs, gesturing to the woman. “This is Fynn, cybernetics expert. Fynn, you know Rocket. And this is Gamora, my sister. That is Quill, my sister’s idiot --” She pauses, searches for the correct word to describe their current relationship, then sighs again. “My sister’s idiot.”

“You can call me Star-Lord,” Peter says with a grin, without protesting the title Nebula had given him. 

“No, thank you,” Fynn says flatly, not even looking at him. She appears to be focused only on Gamora for the moment. She takes a step closer and Peter shifts closer too, standing half in front of her. 

“So, this is your sister,” Fynn says, apparently speaking to Nebula even though she is looking at Gamora. 

“Yes,” Gamora answers anyway. She is not intimidated by Fynn, though she is firmly on guard, hand hovering near the hilt of her sword. She takes a step to the side so _she_ is in front of Peter instead. As much as she appreciates his gesture of protection, he needs it much more than she does. 

“Your scars,” Fynn says, sounding intrigued. “Your sister told me you also had cybernetic enhancements, but she did not tell me how much more sophisticated they are than hers. I expected them to be more external.” 

“They are not that much more sophisticated,” Nebula says defensively. “And I have more than she does.” 

“If fewer cybernetics can do the job just as well…” Fynn says, finally looking away from Gamora to smirk at Nebula. If Gamora is not mistaken, she is _teasing_ her sister. 

“I did not bring her here for you to study her,” says Nebula, glowering. She doesn’t look alarmed, though, doesn’t look like she’s on the defensive. She isn’t offended by Fynn’s attention either, which is...interesting. She’s seldom seen Nebula display this much trust with anyone, let alone somebody who works in a place like...well, like this. 

“From what you said a moment ago,” Fynn points out, “you didn’t _bring_ her here at all.” 

Nebula just crosses her arms and continues glaring.

Fynn takes a few steps closer, leans in, examining her scars up close. She looks right back, studying this other woman who still somehow does not feel as much like a threat or invasion as she probably should, given the circumstances.

“You are _beautiful_ , Gamora,” she breathes in that oddly deep voice, and Gamora feels a strange flush of pride at that.

“Hey!” Nebula says sharply. “She is also very taken. By the idiot, remember?”

“Yeah, hey!” says Peter, in a tone that’s comically similar to Nebula’s. 

For a moment Gamora looks back and forth between the three of them, confused. She understands that Fynn has been not-so-subtly coming onto her, or at least making a show of doing so. So she isn’t surprised by Peter’s reaction, but Nebula -- and then it clicks. Nebula is not defending her. Nebula is jealous...because she would like this attention for herself.

Fynn shrugs a careless shoulder, and Gamora has to wonder from the way she smiles at Nebula whether she is provoking this reaction from her on purpose. She was teasing her before...

Gamora also has to wonder what is going _on_. Suddenly Rocket’s comment earlier about _”why you like this chick so much”_ comes back into her mind, though he hadn’t seemed to be implying anything beyond the inferiority of Fynn’s weapons compared to his. Still, she watches Fynn and her sister with interest. 

“I am merely making an observation,” Fynn informs Nebula, still with that teasing smile. “You know I am interested in cybernetics.”

“Yeah,” Rocket says before Nebula can respond. He sounds impatient, but he more or less always does. “But that ain’t why we’re _here_ , so can we move on?”

Fynn raises an eyebrow at him, apparently amused. “You have yet to tell my why you _are_ here.”

“You’ve yet to give us the chance,” Peter mumbles petulantly. He shifts again so he’s standing next to Gamora, which she decides is fine with her; Fynn does not register as a threat, or at least no more than any other stranger does. 

“Are we alone?” Gamora asks. The shop appears empty besides them, but there is a door in the back and enough shelving that there is a chance, however small, she may have missed the presence of other people. 

“As alone as one can ever be on Contraxia,” says Fynn, still smirking.

Gamora glances back and forth between her and Nebula, trying to remember everything she’s heard about this planet in the past. It isn’t much, because she’s never been anywhere near it. There was nothing of strategic value here as far as Thanos was concerned. But now she wonders if there’s something she doesn’t know about the planet...

“Don’t go getting paranoid,” says Nebula, a knowing smile twisting her lips as she looks at Gamora. “She just means this is a sleeze ball of a planet with thin walls and sex bots everywhere.”

Fynn nods. “This is _not_ my homeworld, nor my preferred place of business. Lest anyone get any ideas about my standards.”

“Oh,” says Nebula, “we _all_ know your standards are so high that they don’t even include telling us where your homeworld is.” She sounds disappointed about that beneath the facade of disdain. 

“Okay,” Peter says, “so we’re basically alone.” He pauses for a moment, then apparently decides to dive right in. “You know who Thanos was, right?”

Fynn blinks at him a few times, appearing thoroughly unimpressed by the question. “Megalomaniacal Titan who killed half of the universe? Nebula may have mentioned him once or twice.” She turns her unmoved look to Nebula. “I assume that is not what you came all this way to ask me about? I’m fairly certain you two are a better source of information on Thanos than I am.” She glances between her and Gamora. 

“No shit,” Rocket mumbles.

Gamora cuts in before he can say something too insulting; they _did_ promise Nebula not to damage her standing with Fynn, and Gamora is now suspecting that there are more than professional motives involved with Nebula’s concern about that. “No, that’s not what we need information on. We want to know if you’ve ever heard of a group calling themselves the Sons of Thanos?” 

Fynn does show the slightest bit of surprise at that question, though only in the momentary raising of eyebrows. She still appears unimpressed, however. “Yeah. Those high and mighty idiots tried to kidnap me a couple weeks ago. Why?” She says that like it’s no big deal, as if she nearly gets kidnapped so often that it’s not anything of note, or as if their attempt was so weak that it hardly bears mentioning. 

"They got you too?" Peter blurts, sounding undeniably excited, though she can't quite tell whether it's over the prospect of getting more information about the Sons or at the fact that they aren't the only ones to fall victim to those assholes. 

"I said _tried,_ " Fynn scoffs, arching a pierced brow in a way that feels decidedly dismissive. "They came around another of my shops posing as buyers, asking questions about my qualifications and my materials. Apparently they were impressed, because they came back a week or so later monologuing about their cause and how I was going to be their latest asset. Those assholes talk too much, though. They gave me ample time to detonate the charges I keep on all of my premises."

"Wait." Peter blinks at her, not quite gaping but definitely taken aback. "Wait, you _blew up_ your shop?"

Gamora glances around, guessing that this place must be rigged as well. It's fortunate that Nebula appears to like this woman so much, she thinks, or she'd be ending this meeting five minutes ago.

"Oh yes," Fynn says dismissively. "It was expensive but what else was to be done? I was _not_ about to be taken prisoner."

“Well, that’s cheating,” Rocket mutters, sounding remarkably like Peter when he’s petulant. Gamora can’t help the idle thought that they’re so much more alike than they probably realize.

“You are supposed to be our weapons expert,” Nebula informs Rocket. She is trying to keep her tone serious, Gamora can tell, but an edge of humor slips through that she is only just getting used to hearing from her sister. “Why don’t _you_ keep everything wired with explosives so we can escape kidnapping attempts?” 

“Maybe I do!” Rocket says defensively. Gamora certainly hopes that isn’t true, though she has to admit that it does make a good last ditch escape strategy. “But we were on another planet! And those bastards snuck up on us too fast!”

“So,” Fynn says in a darkly amused drawl. “They succeeded in kidnapping you, I gather.”

Now Nebula is the one on the defensive. “We escaped the same day. It hardly counts.”

Gamora feels Peter shift a little closer to her, so their arms brush every time they take a breath. In fact, they’re touching more often than they’re not. He, like her, is probably thinking about what happened after they escaped, and all that it’s led to. 

She lets her fingers brush against the back of his and loosely lace together again. 

“So, what?” Fynn asks, directing the question mostly at Nebula. “Now you’re looking for information on them so you can take them down?” 

"Bingo!" says Peter, which causes Fynn to turn and look at him in confusion. Nebula and Rocket roll their eyes. 

The next thing Gamora knows, he's turning to her, clearly looking for support -- only she no longer understands what that word means, assuming she did once. She bites her lip and shakes her head, shrugging apologetically and hoping he'll understand her meaning. She doesn't want to disappoint him but she also doesn't want to explain all the particular oddities of her situation to Fynn. 

Peter winces, but she doesn't have time to decide whether that means he's realized his mistake and feels bad about it or if he's just disappointed that he didn't get whatever he expected from her. Regardless, he turns to Fynn. "It means 'exactly.' Like, you hit the nail on the head. Let me guess, you're going after them too?"

Fynn scoffs at that, barks out a derisive laugh. "Oh gods no. Where is the profit in that? They have already cost me considerably."

Peter makes a disgusted face. "And it's all about the money with you?"

"Pretty much," Fynn says unabashedly. "You might deal in heroics, but I do business in cold hard cash."

“This is another reason I’m better,” Rocket says, arms crossed, standing proud. 

Nebula scoffs. “You said just yesterday that we were wasting time and units by doing this.” 

Rocket shrugs dismissively. “That was mostly a joke. And I’m still _doing_ it, ain’t I?”

“Only because we’re making you,” Peter says. 

“Nobody _makes_ me do anything,” Rocket informs him haughtily. 

“That’s not the point,” Gamora says quickly, before it can devolve into a full-blown bickering match. She still does not want to damage Nebula’s standing with a contact she clearly...cares about, though Fynn seems only amused by the exchange thus far. “Do you know anything else about the Sons that could help us?” Gamora asks her. 

“Nothing you don’t already know, I’m sure,” Fynn says with a careless shrug. “I had never heard of them before they tried -- and failed --” She throws Rocket a condescending smirk at that part before continuing, “to kidnap me so I could build them a super weapon they’re too dumb to build themselves.” 

Rocket’s tail bristles. “Right, well, this was a flargin’ waste of time,” he says, glaring accusitoraily at Nebula. 

“It was not,” Gamora says. Though this meeting has not given them the information she had hoped it would, she can’t help but jump to her sister’s defense. “We found out they’ve gone after at least one other weapons expert.” 

“And we got to see your girlfriend, Nebby,” Rocket taunts. 

He moves lightning-quick, darting behind Fynn as Nebula pulls one of her batons, flickering blue with energy that’s hopefully only on the stun setting. He snickers mischievously even as Nebula’s features twist into an expression of rage.

“If you _ever_ call me that again, you mangy stinking _carcass_ \--” Nebula growls, but she falls silent as Fynn holds up a hand.

“Children,” she chides, though she looks decidedly amused by this turn of events, and more than a little bit pleased, too. 

Nebula makes a sound of frustration, but powers off her baton and sheathes it again.

“We are grateful for your assistance,” Gamora says to Fynn, deciding to ignore the fact that the assistance hasn’t really been that significant. “Should you happen to encounter the Sons again or learn any more information about them, would you please contact us?”

“Naturally,” says Fynn, like that’s a given. She glances at Nebula and something passes between them. Gamora finds that it doesn’t bother her, though she doesn’t understand all of the intricacies of their communication. She and her sister will have lots to discuss later.

“All right,” says Nebula, after a moment. “Thank you for your time, Fynn. We will be going now.”

“Yeah,” says Rocket. “If we hurry, we still got time for Quill to find a sex bot to hug.” He darts out the door and into the snow before anyone can react.

* * *

Her urge to talk to (and possibly tease) Nebula as soon as possible is strong, but it’s one Gamora has to resist. As soon as they get back to the Quadrant, after gathering up Drax and Mantis and their collection of new weapons, Nebula marches off to her room. Gamora considers going after her, but something tells her to leave her sister alone for the moment. She is a lot more sensitive than she seems from the outside; a lot more than she ever knew before. She probably needs some alone time before she’d be open to talking. 

So, Gamora decides to go to the target practice room instead. There are a lot of things she’s still getting used to about her new home -- or her old home, depending on how she thinks about it -- and the freedom to go wherever she wants, whenever she wants is definitely one of them. Even now, despite the fact that nobody had so much as batted an eye when she’d said she was coming here, she has to fight back the fear that someone is going to come and tell her she shouldn’t be. 

Perhaps that’s why she’s on high alert when, after she’s already destroyed a couple of targets and is sitting there sharpening her knives, she hears footsteps approaching from down the hall. She knows right away that they don’t belong to Peter, but it takes her a few seconds to identify who it _is_. The steps are too light to be Drax, too heavy to be Rocket, too fast to be Groot…

Then a face presses up against the window on the door: Mantis. 

Gamora freezes for a moment, feeling a rush of fear. So far she’s only seen Mantis in conversation with the rest of the crew. She’s seen how she appears to be sweet and rather innocent, almost childlike. Oblivious, but in a different way from Drax. Not outwardly a threat. But Gamora has also had time to observe her powers. She’s seen Mantis take down the monkey creatures on Liri IV when none of their weapons would do the trick -- and seen that she did it with scarcely more than a flick of her hand and a twitch of her antennae. Gamora is perceptive enough to know without question that Mantis is the most powerful person on this ship -- possibly the most powerful person she has ever _met._

And yet, that’s not really what scares her, if she’s being honest with herself. She doesn’t know Mantis very well, but she does trust that nobody here is about to corner her and kill her. Or at least...the rational part of her brain trusts that. What _really_ concerns her is the idea of Mantis being able to read her emotions, possibly even being able to influence them. 

“Gamora!” Mantis yells, much louder than necessary. She’s got a huge grin on her face, which is a little bit terrifying, though she looks only excited, not sinister. “Can I come in?” 

Gamora nods because she can’t think of any reason not to; Mantis is a member of this team, a member of the group she considered family for four years. She doesn’t know much about what her relationship with Mantis was like during that time, though she gathers they must have gotten along. Mantis certainly seems fond of her. Perhaps she should ask Peter about that sometime… 

“Hi!” Mantis greets her enthusiastically when she comes in. “I did not get a chance to show you what I got on Contraxia! Look!” Then she’s brandishing a fairly large knife that reminds her of Drax’s, holding it by the hilt and waving it around as if it’s made of plastic, though Gamora can tell immediately that it’s real. 

“That’s--nice, Mantis,” Gamora says, forcing herself to smile. She’s still not intimidated at all by Mantis with a weapon, since her biggest weapon is just herself. But it is _slightly_ unnerving to see her wave a knife around. 

“Drax said it was the best one there!” Mantis says proudly. She finally holds it still so Gamora can see more detail. She’s not surprised Drax thought so, since it looks so similar to the ones he favors. 

“Well,” says Gamora, “given the general selection of things I saw on Contraxia…”

“Oh, I like Contraxia very much!” Mantis says immediately, apparently oblivious to the cynicism in Gamora’s tone. Although, come to think of it, Gamora isn’t sure she’s _ever_ seen Mantis be cynical or pessimistic or...well, any of the things she herself has come to accept as necessary aspects of reality. Perhaps that has to do with her enormous power or her ability to feed off the emotions of others, but that doesn’t really seem to fit. More likely it’s just a part of her personality.

“What do you like about Contraxia?” she asks, curious but also wary. For all she knows, she’s missing some crucial memory that ought to explain that.

“There are many bright lights and colors!” Mantis declares, using the knife to make a gesture that’s alarming only because it’s so clear that she doesn’t understand how to use it. “And people! All of the people are very interesting. Also, I do not mind the robots because they do not affect my powers in any way.”

“Because they have no emotions?” Gamora asks. 

“Or if they do, I cannot feel them,” she says. “The people around them are usually very drunk, which makes them harder to sense. So mostly there I sense a lot of confusion and sexual arousal. And loneliness. I do not like that as much.” 

“Right,” Gamora says slowly, not really sure what to do with any of that. The idea that she’s able to get that much information from people, people she’s not even touching, is…unnerving. Peter had told her that Mantis’s powers came mostly from touch. 

“You are nervous,” Mantis informs her, nearly making her jump. “What is wrong?” 

“How do you know I’m nervous?” she asks tensely. She tries to keep the accusation out of her tone, but the idea of another person knowing what she’s feeling, essentially being in her head without any way to stop it, makes her skin crawl. 

“Because you are holding your knife very tightly,” Mantis says, pointing to where she is indeed gripping the hilt of her knife as if it’s going to try to run away. “And you are watching me very closely. And your face is tense.” 

“Oh,” Gamora says, making a conscious effort to relax her grip and her expression. “So…it’s not because of your powers?” 

Mantis considers, looking very thoughtful for a moment. “Well...if seeing and hearing are powers, then yes? But I am not sensing you empathically right now, no.”

“I guess -- they could be considered powers by some,” Gamora allows. She hasn’t ever thought about it that way, but it does make a certain amount of sense. After all, aren’t those senses Thanos had enhanced expressly to augment _her_ strategic power? “But no, I did mean your empathic senses.”

“I would not use those without your permission,” says Mantis, though there’s nothing defensive about it, she’s just stating facts -- and maybe trying to be reassuring, though it’s a bit hard to tell.

Gamora nods slowly, trying to make a further effort to relax. “I appreciate that. I have not -- always been around people who showed me that respect.”

“Oh I know!” she says immediately, and with a great deal of enthusiasm. “Thanos sucked big purple hairy ones!”

Gamora blinks. “He -- _what_?”

Mantis leans in, raising her voice a bit as though volume was the entire problem. “Thanos sucked _big purple hairy ones!_ ”

“Thanos -- sucked -- _what?_ ” Gamora repeats, reeling between instinctive fear at the insult and utter confusion.

This time Mantis lowers her voice, her expression very serious. “I do not know. But he _sucked_ them. Peter said!”

Gamora blinks, and then suddenly she has a strange but distinctive flash of memory of sitting in the cockpit of the Benatar with Peter, who’s looking at her with an expression full of affection, and a little exasperation. _“Balls, Gamora,”_ , he says with a shake of his head, and a cute laugh. _“It means balls. It’s totally an expression.”_

She’d rolled her eyes then, but she’s too surprised by the memory to do so now. This is the second time today she’s gotten a flash like that, but this one seems more... innocuous, somehow. 

Mantis is still looking at her, and Gamora remembers that she still doesn’t know what it means. She elects not to explain it to her, especially since that might require telling her _how_ she knows, and she still hasn’t told anybody else that she’s getting memories from her -- herself. Though she is starting to wonder how long she can keep that true. 

“Yes, um, thank you Mantis,” she says instead. 

“You are welcome!” Mantis says enthusiastically. She is still smiling at her and just standing there in front of her as if she’s expecting something. Gamora considers what she might want, if she should _know_ what Mantis is expecting from her right now, but she doesn’t. 

“Did you want something, Mantis?” she asks eventually, trying not to sound impatient.

“Oh, yes!” Mantis says, still with the same happy demeanor. “I was hoping you would show me how to use this!” Then she waves her knife around in the air again.

"Whoa," says Gamora, taking half a step back to avoid the overly enthusiastic slice of the knife-- and also the brush of the hand that happens to be waving it. 

Mantis stills immediately, letting the weapon hang down by her side, her antennae wilting a little bit. "I am sorry. I do not mean you any harm. I wish only to harm those who would hurt my family!" She doesn't brandish the knife again, thankfully, but she does bare her teeth, which is equal parts comical and a bit off-putting. "I will cut those people to shreds!"

"I am sure you could," says Gamora, in what she hopes is a convincing tone. Then again, with Mantis being so perceptive… "But I am unsure why you would need to. Your powers are far more formidable than a knife."

"Knives are the best weapons in the galaxy!" Mantis says eagerly, her antennae bouncing a bit as she nods. 

"Oh, are they?" Gamora prompts, amused. _She_ certainly thinks so, but it's difficult to believe Mantis came up with that sentiment on her own.

"Drax says so!" she confirms. "And so do you!" She pauses for a moment, grinning, then seems to remember a point she wanted to make. "Besides, using my powers has downsides. It is very tiring and sometimes very unpleasant."

“Oh,” Gamora says, once again surprised. She hadn’t considered before how draining it must be for Mantis to use her mind as a weapon like that. She hides it well, but now that Gamora’s thinking about it, she can remember Mantis being tired after using her powers in fights. Plus, what she’d said about feeling the drunkenness and confusion on Contraxia, which it seems like she can’t help _but_ to feel. 

Her estimation of Mantis’s powers, and Mantis herself, only increases at those realizations though, since she deals with those side effects so well that Gamora hadn’t even considered them. 

“It’s a good idea to learn another skill,” Gamora tells her, which makes Mantis beam. “But...why me? And not Drax?” She seems to be very close to Drax, treating him at times almost like a father, or an esteemed brother. 

“Drax is very good with knives,” Mantis says earnestly. “But when I asked him how to use it, he said all I have to do is stab things until they die. And I want to learn to use one like you do! You are so elegant with knives, and your sword! And graceful, and coordinated, and powerful--”

“Thank you,” Gamora says awkwardly, cutting her off before she can gain too much steam; she gets the feeling that Mantis could go on like that for a while, and she has no idea how to deal with that kind of praise. 

"You are very welcome!" says Mantis, undeterred. "You are also very beautiful and brave and selfless and--"

"I am anything but selfless," says Gamora, her interruption less awkward this time, more forceful. 

Mantis giggles, surprising her. "You always say that but it has never been true!"

"Well maybe it is _now,_ " Gamora insists, aware of and hating the petulant edge she hears in her own voice. "You don't know. Actually, you're pretty much the only one who hasn't questioned who I am now." She'd thought that naivete on Mantis's part, but now she isn't so sure. 

"Why would I?" asks Mantis, like that’s the stupidest question she’s ever heard -- and yet still somehow completely kind. “You are Gamora. I know exactly who you are.”

“Do you?” Gamora can’t resist asking. “You met me the first time after I had already been with this team for two months. I was different...I mean, I am--” She cuts herself off with a frustrated sigh, wishing she had Peter or Nebula here. For some reason, it’s easier to feel like she is or can be the same Gamora they all know when she’s with one of them. But when she’s on her own with Mantis, who she has no experience or memory of interacting with, it’s much more difficult. 

“I know you,” Mantis insists. She sounds remarkably calm and assured, while Gamora feels like she’s barely keeping a hold on her frustration with herself. “You do not remember some things, but you are still Gamora. I can tell.” 

“Because of your powers?” Gamora asks, because of the confident, knowing way she says that. 

Mantis shakes her head, though. “No. But I could use those if you wanted me to, to prove it.” 

Gamora says nothing, trying to fight back the skin-tingling sensation that accompanies the idea of letting somebody inside her mind like that. She knows it’s not mind-reading, but it feels like just as intimate a prospect. 

“You did not used to want me to touch you,” Mantis tells her when she doesn’t respond. She doesn’t sound bothered by that, or offended; she’s just stating a fact. “So I understand if you do not right now.” 

Gamora considers. There _is_ something tempting about the idea. Hasn’t she been wanting proof all along? Some sort of test? _Some_ kind of hard evidence that she is the same, that she _can_ have all of these new, tantalizingly wonderful things.. And yet the idea of having someone feel her emotions, feel her...She gropes for the word as she has so many times. _Soul_ is what comes to mind, though she’s never really believed in those before.

“Did I ever allow you to touch me -- before?” asks Gamora. She isn’t sure what she’s hoping to hear, whether it would be reassuring to know that she did or if it would feel like further proof that she is not the same person now. 

“Oh yes!” Mantis says immediately. Then she turns pensive again. “It took a long time, though. I mean -- before you would let me touch you -- again.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow, picking up on the hesitance in her tone. “Again? When was the first time, then?”

Mantis shifts on her feet, wringing her hands together and biting her lip. “I… It was before we became a family, the way we are now. Do you know about Ego?” 

“Yes,” Gamora says slowly, her nerves increasing from the way Mantis is acting. “I know how we met you.”

“And you know what he tried to do to Peter?” she asks, her voice going even quieter, more wary, as if afraid Gamora is going to freak out. Thinking about what Peter has told her about Ego does make her protective instincts flare, but she just calmly nods so Mantis will continue. “Well, you did not know that I had turned against Ego at first. You found out that Ego was evil, and you thought I was evil too. And when you could not find Peter, you found me and held me up by my throat. So I...I used my powers to sense your feelings. You were very scared for Peter. I enhanced your fear to make you let go.” 

“Oh,” Gamora says simply, processing that. As Mantis told the story, she felt...something. A kind of flash of intense fear and confusion and worry for Peter, but that could just be her imagination, thinking about how she would feel if she could not find Peter and knew he was in trouble. She knows she would not hesitate to hurt anybody if she thought they could be a threat to him. 

Mantis is watching her nervously, still like she’s worried about her reaction. “Mantis, I was hurting you. I don’t blame you for using your powers in self defense. You know that, right?” 

Mantis smiles, the expression spreading slowly over her features to warm her entire face. “That is what you always said before. See?”

Gamora blinks, surprised and also sort of impressed. “Mantis, was that a test?” She wouldn’t have thought it possible -- wouldn’t have thought Mantis, in all her apparent innocence, would be capable of such a devious thing. Then again, hasn’t she chided herself more than once for underestimating Mantis?

Mantis does a little shrug. “It is just an observation.”

Gamora shakes her head, feeling an undeniable swell of affection. “You’re showing me that you can prove you know me without using your powers. Because you _know_ that having you use your powers on me now would make me uncomfortable.”

“Perhaps,” Mantis agrees, and now she definitely looks a bit smug.

“You said it took a while,” says Gamora. “Before I would let you touch me again. So...what happened when I did?”

Mantis’s smile broadens at that. “Oh, it was so nice! We were on a mission to rescue some hostages. I had touched one of them who was feeling very afraid, so _I_ was feeling very afraid. You allowed me to touch you so that I could feel your calm.”

“Oh,” Gamora breathes, surprised by the wave of emotion she feels at that. She isn’t sure, again, whether it’s a memory or just...just a very nice thing to be feeling right now. She swallows and shakes herself a bit. “Well I -- I don’t think I need you to touch me now. Not for proof. But thank you for -- sharing those things with me.”

Mantis nods. “You are most welcome. But I would still like it very much if you would show me how to use a knife?”

“Oh yes!” Gamora shakes herself, realizing that she’s nearly forgotten that was why Mantis came here in the first place. Suddenly she wants nothing more than to fulfill that request, to give something back when Mantis has just given _her_ so much. “Yes, let’s start on that right now.”


	24. Chapter 24

She leaves Nebula alone for the entire night, and even most of the next day. Though the latter may be less because of her wanting to give Nebula privacy and more because Peter made her some more bacon in the morning, and that distracted her for a while. Mantis also came to find her in the kitchen after their second servings of breakfast to continue her knife lessons. Drax wanted to “help” in those lessons, and convincing him not to took a while too. 

By the time she finally tells Mantis that they both need a break, it’s time for dinner and she hasn’t seen Nebula all day. On top of her worry that Nebula is avoiding everyone and holing herself up in her room, there are a lot of things she wants to talk to her sister about. It’s a strange feeling, but also a nice one: having someone she wants to talk about things with. 

So, figuring she’s left her alone for long enough, she eats a quick meal and then heads straight for Nebula’s quarters. She only knows where they are because of Peter’s tour, and has never been inside, but they are easy enough to find. 

She can immediately tell Nebula’s inside because she can hear her distinctive heartbeat. She doesn’t bother to knock, because she knows Nebula can hear hers as well. 

“What do you want, Gamora?” she calls from inside. 

“May I come in?” asks Gamora, very aware that it’s the sort of boundary neither one of them ever would have respected before. It’s the sort of boundary neither one of them would have been able to _have_ before. Asking still feels odd in a way, although she can’t help thinking of Peter and the way he checks in with her about everything he does. The way he moves so slowly and respectfully even now, when it’s been several days that she’s told him she _wants_ to be touched. 

“What if I say no?” asks Nebula, almost as if reading her thoughts. Then again, she can only imagine that her sister has gone through a similar building of trust with this team...this family.   
Not on the same romantic level, but...well, maybe she is no longer so certain that her sister would have _no_ interest in such things.

“Then I will go away instead of coming in,” Gamora says sincerely. She hopes that Nebula doesn’t take her up on that offer, though, because she really wants to talk. Both about the next step to take in their quest to find the Sons and...well, lots of things.

She’s just begun to lose hope when the door swings open, revealing Nebula’s face schooled into an expression of careful neutrality. “Well, come in then.”

“Thank you,” Gamora says sincerely. She waits for Nebula to step aside before entering the room, trying not to be obvious about how much she’s looking around. She can’t really help it, though. She’s been curious about Nebula’s quarters since they came aboard, but she’s never had occasion to see until now. 

As long as Gamora remembers knowing her, neither of them has ever been allowed to customize their own space, so she had formed no expectations as to what Nebula’s room might look like. But somehow she’s not all that surprised by its appearance -- at first. 

At first glance, it looks just like the quarters she and Peter have been staying in, in that it was likely intended as a guest room before being converted for her use later. It doesn’t seem like she’s done all that much to personalize it; certainly not as much as the quarters Gamora and Peter actually shared during those years she doesn’t remember. But after looking around for a moment, the details make themselves known, the little things her sister has done to make this room her own. 

There’s a small vanity against one wall, but unlike the one that Gamora apparently used, it’s covered in mechanical bits and pieces; Nebula most likely uses it for repairing her cybernetics. Then there’s the bedspread: it’s a dark blue rather than the gray of the other guest rooms, and it looks a little softer too. 

The most striking thing, though, is the dresser. Or rather, what’s on top of it. The first thing that catches her eye is a flash of purple -- a string of Voln lilies are climbing the wall behind the dresser, spreading across and toward a spot where the vibrations from the ship’s pipes and other life support systems are loudest. She has a moment to wonder whether Nebula transplanted them from the area near the engine room where Peter planted the rest of the flowers -- and then she sees the rest of the dresser and it’s no longer a question at all. There are several colored beads sitting in a small cup, and Gamora realizes almost immediately that they must be from her collection of hair ornaments. 

And then she processes the pictures: There’s one of just her, looking serious and also directly into the lens of the camera. It’s probably a capture from a biometric scan, and she’s pretty sure she’s seen it as one of the stock representations of her in the ship’s systems. But there’s also one of her and Peter, laughing, his arm around her shoulders, apparently unaware of the camera. And there’s a third, of her and Nebula. Gamora doesn’t remember taking this picture but it’s clear that she did, her own eyes focused on the camera while her sister glowers in apparent protest.

“Oh, Nebula,” she whispers, her voice catching in her throat at the sight of the memorial.

“Shut up,” says Nebula. “Unless you want to thank me for making sure _somebody_ remembered what your stupid face looks like.”

She looks tense, uncomfortable with the attachment this puts on display. She might rather Gamora just brush past this and move on, but her own emotions won’t let her. 

“I do, actually,” Gamora says softly, and she pulls her sister into a tight hug. “Thank you.” She can feel Nebula sigh against her, but it doesn’t take her long to hug her back. 

“You are making me regret it,” Nebula mumbles with no bite. 

Gamora ignores her. “I am grateful that you chose to remember me...like this.” She’s happy in those pictures, except perhaps the one by herself. And the hair beads were--are something important to her, to her culture. Before, she never thought anybody would remember her after she died, except as a daughter of Thanos, someone who brought pain and destruction and death to the galaxy. That somebody, anybody, would remember her like this… 

“Did you come here just to be pathetic?” Nebula asks, pulling away. She’s glaring, but it doesn’t faze her. 

Still, she does attempt to swallow down those emotions, figuring she’s going to make Nebula uncomfortable enough with one of the things she came up to talk about. Might as well relax her for a bit, distract her before it comes to that. 

“Not just for that,” Gamora says. “I came to ask if you had found out anything more about the Sons.”

Nebula apparently isn’t quite ready to be done with the bitter, aloof act, though. She crosses her arms and arranges her features into a slightly different glower. She must be feeling the need to compensate for the visible softness of the memorial. “Oh, you do still care about that? I thought you’d decided you cared more about social hour, which is apparently every hour around here.”

Gamora sighs. “And _I_ thought you wanted me to believe that these people could be my family again. That this place could be my home. Is that not true, Nebula?”

Nebula opens her mouth, closes it again, and makes a frustrated noise. She is trapped -- she has trapped _herself_ \-- and she has to know it. “Fine. Yes.”

Gamora smiles, but she’s careful to keep it small and not too smug. “May I sit?” She gestures toward the edge of the bed, because sitting in the chair at the vanity feels too much like a violation of boundaries.

Nebula rolls her eyes. “Ugh. I did _not_ intend for you to become so insufferably bossy again.”

“I have never been bossy,” Gamora says loftily. Before Nebula can protest, like she is clearly about to, she adds, “And I _asked_.” She very deliberately does not sit down on the bed, even though she wants to just to tease Nebula; she is trying to show respect here. 

Nebula rolls her eyes. “Fine, whatever, sit down. I don’t care.” 

She does, sitting on the edge and looking expectantly at Nebula, who sighs more dramatically than Groot when he’s been told to put down his video game. “I suppose you want _me_ to sit down too?”

“If you would like to,” Gamora says as neutrally as she can. Of course she does, but it should be her sister’s choice. It’s also kind of funny, how much she’s pouting to overcompensate for her display of _feelings_.

“Maybe I would,” Nebula mumbles, sitting down a few feet away on the bed with her arms crossed. Gamora resists the urge to laugh. 

A few moments pass in silence, and Gamora thinks if she just waited a few more, Nebula would probably break and say something. She is gaining confidence in predicting her sister’s reactions and feelings, though she thinks Nebula still probably knows her better, with the distinct advantage of those four years Gamora is missing. 

She doesn’t test that theory, though. Instead, she decides to give her sister a break...sort of...and speak first. “I know you must have been researching the Sons more since we last spoke. But if you would prefer not to talk about that, I can always ask about Fynn instead.” 

“See?” Nebula deflects. “This is exactly what I mean! Barely more than a week since you started getting your memories back and here you are blackmailing me!”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “I am doing no such thing and you know it.”

Nebula pouts at her. “You are continuing to prove my point: Bossy.”

"If I wanted to blackmail you," says Gamora, finding this far more enjoyable than she perhaps should, "I would do a better job of it than this."

Nebula arches an eyebrow. "Is that supposed to make me feel better or worse, sister? Knowing that you could torment me more?"

"You missed me," Gamora teases, shaking her head in mock sadness. The statement sends a real ache through her chest, though, as she thinks of Peter saying the same thing tearfully, as she thinks again of the memories she’s gotten back most recently, involving the better times she's had with her sister. 

"I never said I didn't miss you," Nebula admits grudgingly. "I can be glad you are back and still find you insufferable."

"Fair enough," Gamora allows, laughing softly. Then she turns serious again. "So. Do you want to talk about Fynn or the Sons?"

“There is nothing to talk about regarding Fynn,” Nebula says quickly. Gamora is sure she would be blushing if she could. She’s tempted to push, wants so much to continue teasing her sister about her obvious crush, but she did give Nebula the choice. 

“Well, did you find anything new about the Sons?” she asks instead. 

“Yes,” Nebula says stiffly, watching her suspiciously as if she’s going to spring the Fynn subject back on her at any moment. Which she’s totally not going to do...yet, anyway. “There have been several other kidnappings of weapons designers within the past couple of weeks. I don’t know if any of the rest of them escaped, and technically it’s not known who is responsible for the kidnappings. But it’s too much of a coincidence to be anybody else.”

“Oh,” Gamora says, for some reason feeling guilty even though she had nothing to do with the kidnappings of those other people. She feels as if they should be trying to help them, if they are even still alive. But how are they supposed to do that if they can’t even locate the Sons? “Were all of these kidnappings in the same area?”

Nebula shakes her head, dashing that hope. “Apparently they are not quite _that_ stupid. They were all on different planets, in different areas of the galaxy. But I am getting in touch with other contacts of mine, to see if they know anything that could help.” 

“Have you heard from any of them yet?” she asks, eager to make progress.

“Gods you’re impatient,” Nebula sighs. “If I had heard from them, I would have said ‘my contact told me…’ and not that I was getting in touch with them!” She rolls her eyes for what feels like the umpteenth time since they started this conversation.

Now it’s Gamora’s turn to sigh. “You have to admit you might have withheld the outcome for dramatic effect.” She doesn’t give Nebula a chance to respond from that aside from wrinkling her nose. “I just don’t like the fact that we have so little when it’s already been so long.”

“And you think I do?” asks Nebula, crossing her arms.

“No!” Gamora allows quickly. “No, I just -- It reminds me of -- of --”

“Of Thanos,” says Nebula, not a question. Which of course is exactly what she could not bring herself to say. She hasn’t truly realized it until just now either. It isn’t that she thinks the Sons have the same power Thanos did -- they wouldn’t need to be kidnapping anyone if that was the case -- but their threat seems ever-present in the same way. Waiting to strike, to take away the fragile happiness she is starting to build. She wonders if this is how it felt...well, before.

And then another thought occurs to her. 

“You were not with us on Knowhere,” says Gamora, replaying those memories in her mind. “But Thanos -- had you later. When -- when he asked me... How did that happen?”

Nebula looks briefly taken aback by the question before she schools her features again, though her carefully neutral expression doesn’t fool Gamora anymore; the emotion behind it is abundantly clear, so much so that she wonders how she missed the softer side of her sister for so long. 

“I attempted to kill Thanos on my own,” Nebula explains. “I got close, but I was not good enough. He captured me. Kept me there until he brought you back.” 

“Nebula,” Gamora sighs, not entirely surprised. Her sister has always been extremely determined. But she thinks of the dream -- memory -- of Nebula strung up, separated into parts and tormented as a means to torture _her_ , and she vows she is never going to let that happen again. Suddenly, Nebula’s determined pursuit of the Sons concerns her. “Please, swear to me you will not try to go after the Sons on your own.”

“Bossy,” Nebula says, but when Gamora continues to look at her pleadingly, she heaves a sigh. “You know, I was surviving just fine on my own for five years without you.” 

“You don’t have to do that anymore,” Gamora reminds her. “Neither of us do.” 

“Don’t try to infect me with your sap,” Nebula says, but it’s weak. 

“I think it’s too late for that,” Gamora says in as grim a tone as she can manage. 

“And what makes you say that?” Nebula scoffs. 

“Well, the memorial shrine, for one,” she points out. It feels odd, referring to a shrine that’s...well, that’s been constructed in her own honor. In her mind, that feels like the sort of thing Thanos would have wanted. But no, this is different, she tells herself. This isn’t about fear or power or achievement. This is just -- someone who loves her. 

“Are you ever going to stop talking about that?” Nebula snaps, but there’s no bite in it. She might even sound slightly pleased with the impact it’s made. 

“Sure,” Gamora says charitably. “Instead I’ll tell you about something else I remembered: how you knew about Peter and the sex-bot.”

“Oh, did you now?” She looks decidedly interested now, definitely a topic preferred over the memorial. Though that may just be because she’s invested in _any_ memories Gamora’s managed to regain. 

She nods. “I seem to recall you brought Asgardian liquor for us to get drunk together. And you called it ‘girls’ night.’”

“I would _never_ do any such thing,” says Nebula, in the least convincing tone Gamora’s ever heard.

“No, I distinctly remember you saying that,” Gamora says, enjoying this far too much to just let it go. “In fact, that’s the clearest part of the memory.” Sure, she had said it awkwardly when presenting Gamora with the bottle of booze, as if she was reluctant to say it out loud, but she had said it. 

Nebula relents with a frustrated groan. “Ugh, fine. But I only said it because your dumb boyfriend told me that’s what it was called.”

And now that she says that, Gamora gets a sudden, clear flash of Peter’s laughing face the day after, asking her if Nebula had actually called it that. Apparently, Nebula had told him that he was not to _insert his hairy face into the room_ while they were hanging out, and Peter assured her that he wouldn’t crash their girls’ night. 

Gamora smiles with affection, both for Nebula and for Peter. “We should have another girls’ night,” she says hopefully. She may remember that night now, but she would like to experience it again. 

“Only if you stop calling it that,” Nebula says, a clear bluff. 

“I’m pretty sure Peter would say that is a pivotal part of the experience,” Gamora says as seriously as she can. To be fair, he totally would. 

“Gods.” Nebula rolls her eyes so hard Gamora’s surprised they don’t go backwards into her head. “Somehow you talk about him even more now than you used to.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow, her enjoyment of this reaching proportions she would not ever have thought possible. Both because she is curious about the past now and because it gives her the continued opportunity to tease her sister. “I have no memory of that. Please do enlighten me.”

“About what?” asks Nebula. “The things you _didn’t_ used to go incessantly on about?”

“No,” says Gamora. “You said I talk about him more _now_ , so...when and how did I used to talk about him before?”

“I -- you -- ugh,” Nebula splutters. “I _cannot_ believe you are making me have this conversation.” She makes a disgusted sound in the back of her throat, but continues anyway. “Well, you remembered our _girls’ night_ , so presumably you know how you talked about him then. You did not always gush as disgustingly as when you were drunk, but you frequently tried to convince me of his worth. And you liked sharing enjoyable things he showed you. Often new types of food.”

“Oh, I _do_ like the food he’s shown me -- again,” she says eagerly, then laughs at the way Nebula’s entire face wrinkles up at that, like she’s just said the most predictable and simultaneously annoying thing ever. Which is probably true, from her sister’s perspective. “And besides, I was right about his ‘worth,’ wasn’t I? You were the one who dragged me across a battlefield at the end of the world so that if I died again, it wouldn’t be without meeting him.”

Nebula shakes her head. “You are so dramatic,” she says, which Gamora finds ironic, coming from her. “I simply knew that he’d need you to save his dumb life. He always does.” 

“Well, I am glad that you did it, no matter the reason,” Gamora says diplomatically. “Although, you have told me multiple times how good he is to me, and for me, so I think you do know his worth.”

“See?” Nebula says, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “You never shut up about him.” She is clearly avoiding directly answering that accusation, not that Gamora expected her to suddenly start singing his praises. But that’s fine with her; she knows Nebula actually likes him. And besides, if Nebula wants a change of subject, she can give her a change of subject. 

“Oh, would you like to talk about something else?” Gamora asks slyly. “Like, why did you not tell me your contact was so pretty?” 

“How is that relevant?” Nebula says quickly, her body visibly tensing. It does not escape Gamora’s notice that she didn’t deny it. 

“How long have you known her?” she asks, instead of answering. 

“How is _that_ relevant?” Nebula asks. Her embarrassment is clear, and Gamora is delighted; not that she wants her sister to be uncomfortable, exactly, but to see that she cares this much is downright _cute_.

“Oh, come on, Nebula,” Gamora says, smirking. “It was pretty obvious.” 

“That I have known her for some measurable amount of time? Well yes, I would _hope_ that was obvious, or she would not be one of my contacts,” Nebula deflects. But then she sighs, seeming to sense that if she doesn’t answer _that_ question, Gamora is going to redirect the conversation to something she wants to discuss even less. Which she totally is. “Fine. _Fine._ I met her shortly after I -- after we all -- failed to stop Thanos.”

“After I died,” says Gamora, partly because she wants to be clear, but also because she’s still trying to get used to saying it, trying to get used to the fact that it happened. If she is going to accept that she is the same person, can have the same life, then she will have to get used to the rest of it too.

“Yes,” says Nebula, an edge in her voice now. She refuses to meet Gamora’s eyes as she speaks. “Some of my modifications were damaged in that fight. I was unable to repair them on my own and...well, I did not have _you_ to assist me in repairing them, so I went in search of other options. Fynn turned out to be the best one.”

“Oh,” Gamora breathes. “She fixed your body mods for you?” She has trouble imagining Nebula allowing somebody else access to her body like that; for most of their lives, she was reluctant to even let Gamora help her, though their relationship was much more adversarial then than it was for the four years that followed. 

“Yes,” Nebula says. Her face and voice seem to be the slightest bit softer as she talks about it, something Gamora is sure she doesn’t realize. “She is very gifted with modifications and enhancements.”

“I could see that from her shop,” Gamora admits. “I can also see why you like her.”

“She is a useful connection,” Nebula hedges. “She travels a lot for her work, so she picks up a lot of valuable information. And it has been helpful to know somebody who can repair my modifications.”

“Yes, I could see the connection as well,” Gamora says with a smirk, causing Nebula’s glare to intensify. 

“You are being very irritating, you know?” She growls. 

“Come on,” Gamora half-sighs, half-laughs. Her sister is so stubborn, she thinks, much more fondly than she used to have the same thought. “Is it so hard to admit that you have feelings for somebody?”

“I cannot admit something that isn’t true,” Nebula says. 

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not asking you to,” Gamora counters. 

“It is a partnership of convenience only,” says Nebula. Her tone is dismissive, but the words are anything but. 

“Oh, is it?” she asks, allowing a hint of triumph to slip into her tone again. She has her sister backed into another corner here and she knows it. “A partnership? Do enlighten me.”

Nebula makes a sound of disgust in the back of her throat and actually throws up her hands a bit. “She works on my cybernetics. Not only repairs, that was just how it started. She has also helped me to -- refine them. Make some of them less painful than what Thanos did to me. And I recommend her services whenever I can.”

“Oh, Nebula,” Gamora says softly, her emotions shifting from amusement at teasing her sister about a crush to something much deeper. Something like gratitude. She cannot ignore how significant a confession Nebula’s just made: the fact that she’s let another person not only work on her cybernetics but _further_ modify her body speaks volumes more than even an outright admission of having a crush. 

“Don’t start,” says Nebula, rolling her eyes again. “You are disgusting enough without getting mushy about this on top of everything else. Besides, I have something better than this conversation.” She leans over, reaches into a storage drawer under her bed, and pulls out a familiar looking bottle.

“Is that Asgardian?” Gamora asks, eager despite herself. Everything about that memory is pleasant.

“Yes,” says Nebula. “Though there is not enough left for the full ‘girls’ night’ experience.” She curls her lip at saying those words. “But if you stop asking me irritating questions, I will re-introduce you.”

Gamora allows herself to smile, large and genuine. “That is a deal I will take.”

* * *

She knows she’s not drunk. True, she doesn’t completely remember that time she _was_ drunk with Nebula -- was that even the only time? She needs to ask sometime -- but she remembers enough to know it wasn’t quite like this. This is something like a milder version of that experience. She still feels completely in control of herself, and competent. She could easily draw her sword or throw a knife with perfect aim. But she also feels...happy. And sort of floaty. It’s strange and difficult to describe. She bets Peter would have the right words for it. 

The thought of Peter makes her smile. She’s already in a good mood when she leaves Nebula’s room after finishing the remainder of that bottle. The thought that she’s going to see Peter in just a minute improves her mood even more. Perhaps Nebula was right, she thinks: she is a sap. 

She makes her way down the halls to her room, the one she and Peter have both been sleeping in the past few nights. That’s a thought that makes her smile widen. By an unspoken agreement, they haven’t spent a night apart since that one attempt, though they’ve yet to do anything more than hug. Also unspoken is the fact that this isn’t their original room; thoughts of that room are less scary to her right now. She wonders if that’s a side effect of the liquor in her system or just time. 

When she gets close she has a moment of apprehension -- She’s just been assuming that he would be here, waiting for her, and is that truly realistic or fair? He has other responsibilities besides spending time with her, after all. And other members of this crew that he’s close to. Then again, she remembers what he’d said on Contraxia with a little pang: _That was you._

And then she moves the rest of the way to the door, and she can hear him inside, her anxiety melting away as quickly as it began. He’s here just like she wanted, his breathing and heart rate steady and strong. And he’s listening to music again, loud enough that she can make out the lyrics:

_Wherever you go, whatever you do_  
You know these reckless thoughts of mine are following you  
I've fallen for you, whatever you do  
'Cause, baby, you've shown me so many things that I never knew  
Whatever it takes, baby, I'll do it for you 

The words fill her with even more warmth than she was already feeling from the alcohol, and from spending time with Nebula. She’s smiling as she finally opens the door and slips through it. Peter is sprawled out on the bed, and his whole face lights up as he sees her.

“Hey!” he says, with the combination of pleasure and relief that seems to fill him every time they interact lately.

“Hi,” she says, stepping a little closer to the bed as he sits up on it. He’s already in his usual sleepwear of a t-shirt and boxers, and she lets her eyes linger on his arms and his chest and his thighs longer than she normally would. She only blushes a bit when she sees him smirk, as he definitely noticed her looking. 

“Gamora,” he says slowly, returning her once-over in kind, only he looks amused rather than...well, whatever she was feeling when she looked at his body. “Did you get drunk?”

“No,” she says easily. She has already decided that she is not drunk. “Nebula and I did drink, but I’m not drunk. I am… I don’t know. A little…” She trails off, still unable to think of the right way to describe it. 

“Tipsy?” Peter supplies. At her confusion, he continues, “It means like, not all the way drunk. Just a little baby drunk.” 

“Then yes,” Gamora says decisively. She knew Peter would be able to give her the word. “Though I am not a little baby.”

“No, I know,” he laughs. “It’s the drunkenness that’s little, not you.”

“Okay,” she says happily, and she takes another step closer. She could theoretically reach out and touch him now, though she doesn’t yet. “I like this song. Is it on my playlist? The one you have for me?”

“Oh,” he says, eyes wide. He looks surprised by the question, though not displeased. “Yeah, it is.” 

“I like it,” Gamora says warmly. She bends down and unzips her boots, kicking them into a corner before crawling onto the bed next to Peter.

“I know,” says Peter, the surprise gone now, replaced by familiar affection. “Because you said that already.”

She blinks, because she doesn’t remember that. She must have said it recently because she’s only been in here for a few moments, so she should remember...and yet she is not bothered by the fact that she doesn’t. Perhaps that is a part of being tipsy. “Oh. Well I do. Very much. Do you still have the playlist?”

“Of course,” he says. He shifts a bit on the bed, giving her more room but also opening up his posture, a clear invitation. “I’m not listening to it on the playlist right now, though. This is just shuffle.”

“Shuffle?” she prompts curiously, stretching out against his side. It feels a bit presumptuous, touching him like this, but it’s what she wants and it feels _right_. Apparently he agrees with that, because his grin widens and he wraps his arm around her shoulders. Gamora leans in further, looking at the screen of the Zune as he picks it up. It looks small in his palm, which reminds her of how large his hands are, which is another thing that she likes. 

“It means it plays all the songs in a random order,” he explains. “So I can’t predict which one will play next. It’s fun.”

“So it shuffles them around,” Gamora says, satisfied with a word that makes sense. So many words don’t make sense, especially Terran ones. “How many songs are on this?”

“300,” Peter says, a note of pride in his voice, and on his face. It’s cute; the pride and the face. 

“That is a lot,” she says. It’s certainly more songs than she’s ever listened to, at least deliberately. She’s sure she has happened to hear more songs than that, but certainly not Terran ones. On impulse, she reaches out and taps the little next button on the Zune’s primitive screen, switching the song to another random one. She only lets it get through a few notes before she taps the button again, then again, something so oddly satisfying about it.

“What are you doing?” Peter asks with a laugh. 

“I want to see the songs,” she says, still clicking. 

“There’s an easier way,” he says, then he presses something on the Zune that pauses the music and brings up another screen, this one displaying a list rather than the title of one song. He scrolls through slowly so she can see. 

“How many songs are on my playlist?” she asks curiously. 

“You know, I never counted,” he says, with something like wonder in his voice. “I can’t believe I never did. At least like fifty, probably more.”

“Can I see it?” she asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” says Peter, though he looks the tiniest bit shy, she thinks. Or maybe not shy, just...self-conscious? Vulnerable. That’s the word that fits best. The look on his face reminds her of how she’d felt when he’d braided her hair a few mornings ago. Not bad, just...very intimate and a little scary, both because it had felt so good and because it had mattered so much. 

“I want to see it very much,” says Gamora, hoping that will reassure him that she’s serious about this, that she knows it’s important. She _hopes_ he knows she would never use such a thing to hurt him, would never belittle him for it...except she also knows that early on after she’d rejoined the team, she’d been all too prepared to attack him in the ways it hurt the most when needed for her own defense.

“Here it is,” says Peter, tightening his arm around her shoulders the slightest bit as he pushes some buttons. The screen changes its display, now showing a list of what must be the names of the songs. It’s so long that he has to scroll several times, far too many to display on one screen. 

“There are a lot,” she says softly. That’s not a surprise, as he’d told her there were, but it looks like more when she actually sees them. 

“Yeah,” he says, quiet and emotional. “There are a lot of songs that make me think of you.” 

She hopes she hasn’t asked too much of him to show her this, but he’s always seemed to be eager to show her music before. She rests her hand very lightly over his where it’s hovering over the screen, and he looks at her with a soft smile; happy, she thinks. 

“When did you make it?” she asks curiously. 

“Well, I started it for our one week anniversary,” he tells her. He turns his hand around slowly so they’re palm to palm. She loosely laces their fingers together, feeling a flush of pleasure when his smile widens. 

“One week?” she asks incredulously. She supposes she shouldn’t be surprised, as he’d told her about his tendency to celebrate random anniversaries, but she’d been picturing this as a more recent thing for some reason. 

“Woulda been sooner,” he says, “but it took me that long to listen to all the songs on here.” 

“That is very sweet,” she says. She wonders how she’d reacted at the time, if she’d felt this same warmth and affection then. 

“You said that then too,” Peter chuckles, the sound a little watery. 

"Well it _is_ sweet," says Gamora, rubbing his forearm with her free hand. He has golden hairs there that stand up a bit when she touches him. It seems like a good response, but she still resolves to ask him about it when it would be less abrupt, less off topic. " _You_ are sweet."

He makes a tiny sound in the back of his throat, probably not audible to Terran ears but impossible to miss for her. "That the alcohol talking again?"

For a moment she's confused, but then it comes to her: He's talking about the memory that had been awakened on Contraxia, the one where she'd bragged to Nebula about his sweetness, also under the influence of Asgardian liquor. "No. That is _me_ talking, because it's true."

"Oh," he whispers, more an exhalation of -- some emotion she can't quite name, less an actual word. He ducks his head, focusing on the screen of the Zune as he scrolls back up to the top of the playlist. 

"Which did you play for me before?" asks Gamora, looking at the titles in more detail now that she's adjusted to how many of them there are. 

He thinks for a moment before pointing to a title. "Well, this one for sure."

She looks where his finger is indicating and gasps softly as she reads _You to Me Are Everything._

When she looks up at Peter again, there are definitely tears in his eyes. 

"Well, you are," he breathes. 

“Peter,” she says in a small voice, throat tight. That’s an enormous thing to say, an enormous thing to feel. And yet she feels it too, somehow, like he’s the most important thing in the entire universe. She wishes she could bring herself to say it. 

He bites his lip as he looks at her, and her eyes are drawn automatically to it. There’s a warmth in her chest, different from the affection she feels for him, present alongside it; it’s like there’s an ember that’s been smoldering inside her, and now something has caused a spark and ignited a fire. 

She really, really wants to kiss him. She wants to know what his lips feel like against hers, what his stubble would feel like against her cheeks and her chin, the way he’d hold her to him, the noises he might make. She thinks he might want the same thing. But next to that fire in her chest is a fear blazing just as strong, a hesitation that stops her. Is this really the right time? Does he _actually_ want this, or is she just reading into things, seeing what she wants to see? And even if he did, how would she go about kissing him anyway? It’s not like this is a thing she has a ton of experience with--that she remembers. 

She forces herself to tear her eyes away from Peter’s face and look back at the screen of the Zune, searching for a distraction. She lands on a song title. “Why is this one on here?” she asks, pointing to it. “Did we steal something together?” 

Peter frowns, confusion replacing...well, whatever that was she was seeing in his face. So apparently it has worked as far as a distraction, though now she's no longer certain that distracting him was actually what she wanted to do. She kind of regrets that he's no longer looking at her like he probably really wants to kiss her. Feelings are confusing and she is annoyed by them despite the fact that so far they've been mostly pleasant. 

"What?" asks Peter, turning that confused look toward her. His brow is furrowed and that is far more attractive than it probably ought to be. 

"What?" she echoes, having thought so hard about stupid emotions that she's lost track of the actual conversation. Now she is more than annoyed by her emotions. Now she would like very much to stab them. 

"You asked if we stole something together," Peter reminds her. "But I have no idea why you asked me that."

"Oh!" The train of thought comes flooding back all at once. "Right. That song is called 'Steal Away,' so I was wondering why it reminded you of me. Is it not about theft?" 

He glances between her and the Zune for a moment before he laughs, a sound full of surprise and affection. “No, no, it’s not… It doesn’t mean actually stealing something. It’s just like—an expression.”

“Oh,” Gamora says, slightly embarrassed, slightly annoyed at finding another term that doesn’t make sense, but mostly still feeling pleasant things. “Then what does it mean?” 

Peter’s mouth twists a bit, that confused look back. It’s oddly cute. “Um, it’s like… It’s hard to explain. Here, let me just…” 

He presses the song on the screen, and the melody starts up. The melody of course does nothing to enlighten her as to the meaning of the title, but it does sound very nice. The first lyrics aren’t much help either. 

_Come on and hold me_  
 _Just like you told me_

Despite their unhelpfulness, she does like them; they make her think of the way Peter holds her when they lie in bed together, and the way he’s holding her right now. They also make her want to be holding him closer, so she scoots as much as she can, resting her head on his shoulder and wrapping her arm around his back. His arm tightens around her in return. 

_Why don’t we steal away_  
 _Why don’t we steal away_   
_Into the night_

“So...we are stealing ourselves?” Gamora asks, trying to comprehend the lyrics when her mind would prefer to focus on the way Peter’s skin smells; sort of like the soap he uses, and aftershave, and just _Peter_. 

“I guess, kinda,” Peter says, his voice quiet and rumbly. “Like, stealing time for ourselves, you know? To spend together. I added this song a little later.” 

“Why was that?” asks Gamora, shifting to rest her ear more firmly against his chest. She likes the way his voice vibrates against her cheek when he speaks. It makes her feel even closer to him somehow, close in a different way. 

“Well…” He trails off, huffs a little laugh. “Well, you said the same thing about the title of it then, for one thing. You told me you didn’t like that it didn’t make sense.”

“Well it doesn’t!” says Gamora. The song is still playing, though, and she decides that she likes both the melody and the lyrics, even if the saying it’s named for seems somewhat disingenuous. She also has to admit that the saying does _kind of_ make sense, if one thinks of it as stealing time to spend together. She certainly understands the concept of stealing time to do enjoyable things -- she often fantasized about that when she lived under Thanos’s control, and occasionally did it for little things.

“Also,” says Peter, “I didn’t think about it for us as much right away. At first we didn’t really _need_ to think about stealing time for ourselves, because we were just kinda...you know, lying low after all the stuff I told you about with Ego. Everyone pretty much left us alone, like I guess they knew we needed space.”

“Oh,” she says softly. That was probably nice, she thinks. Not that they haven’t had alone time now, but she imagines what it must have been like to have so much time, dedicated to spending only with Peter, and she nuzzles impossibly closer to him. “But that changed?”

“Yeah, well,” he murmurs. His fingers are lightly stroking over her arm where they’re resting; it seems almost like an unconscious movement, and she wonders if he knows he’s doing it. “The others love us too much to never see us. And we love them too, a little bit.” 

“Peter,” she chides, but she’s smiling. 

“Okay, okay, mutual love,” he allows. She can hear the smile in his voice too. “We still got time to ourselves, but we started taking trips on the Milano together, to get some more.”

“That sounds very nice,” she says wistfully, scarcely able to imagine that kind of luxury: to be able to go somewhere just because they wanted to spend time together. “Where did we go?” 

“Oh, all sorts of places,” he says. He sounds pretty wistful himself. “You’d never gotten to go anywhere just for fun, and you wanted to see different types of planets. We went to some mountain-y ones, some city ones, some tropical ones -- those were your favorite. We went to a snowy one once, and you were not a fan. But the lodge we stayed at there was real nice…” 

“Nice?” she prompts, wanting to hear the rest of this story. It seems clear that there _is_ a story, the tone of his voice containing multitudes beyond the actual words. “I don’t imagine we tended to stay in...unpleasant places if we were taking trips for fun?”

“No,” says Peter. “Definitely not. But this was -- well, hold on.” 

She cradles the small device gently in her palm, making sure to keep it safe and secure as he shifts to grab his holo off the nightstand. The holo is not the only new thing in here, she realizes suddenly: he’s also brought what appears to be a bag of clothes, and a few other personal items. She can’t help feeling a flush of pleasure at that, because it means that he wants to stay, that he wants to minimize trips back to the other room where he’s been staying.

“Here,” says Peter, finding the picture that he wants and showing it to her on the screen.

Her eyes widen as she takes it in, mesmerized by the image for a number of reasons. It’s a picture of what must be the inside of the lodge, likely the lobby or other common area because there are other people in it. There are a lot of comfortable-looking couches, bright and colorful art on the walls, large windows that look out over snowy mountains, blazing fireplaces. The main focus of the picture, though, is her. She’s standing in front of one of the fireplaces, wearing a pink, puffy jacket and gloves, holding her hands out in front of the fire. She’s also smiling fondly at the camera -- or more likely, Peter behind it. 

“When did we go there?” she breathes. Her jacket is so _bright_. She cannot imagine wearing something so boldly colorful, and yet she hopes fervently that she still has it somewhere. 

“A couple years after we met,” Peter says. “You wanted to try it, and you did like the views and stuff, but you just hated the cold so much that we hardly ever left the lodge.” His smile widens and a blush rises on his cheeks. “That was a good trip.”

“Even though we never--oh.” She pauses and feels her face heat up as she realizes what he’s saying. He clearly means that they spent the trip together, in private, doing...well, private things. Suddenly she really wants to know what those things were, but she also doesn’t want _him_ to know that she wants to know, or to even know that she’s realized that was what he meant, because she doesn’t want--

“Well our room was really nice!” says Peter, in an enthusiastic tone that says he realizes how much she suddenly wants a change of subject. He scrolls to the next picture, which shows a large room that has its own fireplace, and a very large, overstuffed bed that makes her immediately long to be lying in it. But then she sees the other side of the room, and audibly gasps.

One entire wall is transparent, giving a stunning view of the mountain face outside. The ice and snow are a thousand different colors of blue and white reflecting in the sun. It’s so beautiful that for a moment her throat feels tight, her entire body filled with a desperate longing to go to places like this and have experiences like these. She might get these memories back someday, but right now she doesn’t care -- she wants to _do_ things like this anew. 

“Here,” says Peter, scrolling through another couple of pictures. “I think there’s more of the view--uhhh…”

She gasps when the next picture comes up, not quite in displeasure but just...shock. She was already blushing, but now she feels her face warm to the point that it’s uncomfortable. 

She is in this picture, lying on the bed on her stomach, her head in her hand. Her hair is down and tousled, her face is free of make-up, and her body is free of clothing. At least, she assumes it is. She is partially covered by a bedsheet, but her shoulders and back are bare and exposed. She doesn’t look bothered by this at all. In fact, she’s smiling at the camera, so clearly she knows the picture is being taken. But it’s so difficult to imagine feeling free and secure enough to allow anybody to see her like this, much less take a picture of it. 

“Sorry!” Peter says quickly. “Sorry, sorry, I forgot this picture was in here! I’ll just--” He moves his finger to exit out of it, but Gamora shoots her hand out to stop him. 

“No!” she says, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. “No, I… It’s fine.” She’s captivated by the image. She looks so _happy_. 

“You sure?” he asks, though he moves his hand back. “I didn’t mean to...make you uncomfortable.” 

“You didn’t,” she assures him; though she is a little bit, it’s not his fault. “It is just… That is so…” _Intimate,_ she thinks, but has trouble saying the word. Sex and nudity were two very sacred things in her culture. 

“It was a good trip,” he repeats, his voice much softer and filled with emotion now. “I was um -- I was taking pictures of the view, and you -- You moved to be in my shot, which was just fine with me because you were about the only thing I’d ever seen more beautiful than those mountains.” He pauses, swallows hard. “Not were. _Are._ ”

“Peter,” she whispers, overwhelmed. To see herself like this, to have someone _talk_ to her like this...She can’t think about it any more or she is going to cry, though she still can’t quite name all the emotions playing into that feeling. Instead of trying, she swipes to the next picture. This one is similar, though now she’s lying on her back, more of her naked body exposed. There’s a look of radiant bliss on her face, too, and she’s beckoning...to Peter, clearly. The one after that is both of them together, Peter lying half on top of her, stretching his arm out to awkwardly take the photo as they both laugh. 

When she looks up again, Peter is crying silently, his lower lip tortured between his teeth, tears rolling down his cheeks. He freezes as he realizes that she’s seen, his whole body shuddering against hers. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just --”

“Miss -- her?” Gamora asks, a little thrill of fear running through her yet again, because it’s hard to imagine being the person -- being the _way_ she sees herself in those photos.

“No,” Peter grits out immediately, so fervently that it’s hard for her to hold onto even a shred of rekindled doubt. “No, no, you’re here and I know that, I just -- I love you, and we were _so happy_ and -- and what _he_ did to us _sucks._ ”

“It does,” she whispers. She reaches up tentatively to wipe the tears off one of his cheeks, and he leans into her touch. She leaves her hand there even though it’s kind of an awkward position; she will do anything she can to comfort him right now. What Thanos did to Peter makes her hate him more than she ever thought possible, more than she’s ever hated him in her entire life. If anyone didn’t deserve to feel Thanos’ power, it’s Peter. And yet he’s been so affected by it, through what Thanos did to _her_. Despite the fact that she’s here and they’ve been given another chance, that doesn’t erase everything that happened before, everything he went through. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, wishing she could offer up more than a flimsy apology. 

“No, Mora, don’t be,” Peter says, cupping his hand over hers where it still rests on his cheek. He looks at her with tears sparkling in his eyes, but with so much naked affection that she can’t deny. “It’s not your fault, you’re--you’re here, and you’re perfect. But you worked _so hard_ for all those years, to have this life and to be happy, and then that asshole ripped it away.” 

“He ripped it away from you too,” she says sadly. 

“God, I’m sorry,” he repeats. He lets go of her hand to swipe the tears off his other cheek with the back of his, much more roughly than she would have. “This was a good moment and then I went and ruined it.” 

“You didn’t,” says Gamora. “You didn’t.” She carefully sets the Zune and the holo beside her on the bed, far enough from the edge that they won’t get knocked off. Then she shifts off of him to lie on her back, the same way she was in the pictures, and holds out an arm to him. “Come here.”

For a moment he looks like he wants to protest, wants to continue trying to pretend that everything is fine, like he wants to pull the facade back into place. But then a harsh sob tears from the back of his throat and he rolls over to bury his face in her shoulder, holding on tightly. 

Before she knows it, Gamora finds tears in her own eyes, finds her own shoulders shaking with it as she twists her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. All at once, she feels cruel, sharp grief at the reality of what Peter’s just said, of the gulf that lies between her present and the past-future-unknown reflected in those pictures. She holds onto Peter tightly, like he’s her lifeline, her bridge across that gap. He wraps his arms around her in return, clinging just as hard. 

For the first time in as long as she can remember, she chooses to let herself cry.


	25. Chapter 25

He’s looking for Gamora. He knows she’s supposed to be here. He’s in the lodge overlooking the mountains, and it has everything he remembers it’s supposed to have: the couches are all here, the huge window, the fireplaces. Gamora is supposed to be right there, in front of that particular fireplace, warming her hands and smiling at him. But she’s not. 

Before he completely freaks out, he remembers their lodge room, and that she could also be there. He blinks and he’s there, and here also are all the things that are supposed to be, except for the most important one. She should be lying on the bed, half-covered with the sheet, beckoning to him. But the bed is bare, the sheet flat, she’s _gone_ \-- 

His eyes snap open and he feels only a split second of relief that he’s awake, that it was all a dream, because in the next minute, he realizes his arm is lying over the other side of an empty bed, the side where Gamora is supposed to be. This was where they fell asleep last night, holding each other, his arm over her stomach and hers around his back and she’s _not here_. 

“Peter?” he hears, and her voice makes him turn so quickly he nearly gets whiplash. She’s here, not where he remembered her being, but here, dressed in a tank top and leggings, one foot pressed to the wall and her entire body stretched out along it, her fingers touching her toes. 

Peter gapes at her, utterly unable to find his voice. The emotions of the dream slam into him like an avalanche of solid rocks. He’s been numb, mostly, up until now. It was unsettling, certainly, looking for her in the lodge, in their room, realizing that she wasn’t there. Still, there’d been the detachment of sleep, of not-quite-reality. All at once he realizes that she was gone because she was dead, because _Thanos killed her_.

For a beat all he can feel is the grief, the longing -- and then the relief and gratitude come flooding in as he grounds himself, reminds himself that she’s _here_ , and she’s _silver_ and they have time to make new memories if the old ones turn out to be gone for good. He takes a shaky breath, wipes the back of his hand across his eyes and forces himself to focus on her, to try and slow his heart rate down before it makes her worry too much.

“Hey,” he murmurs, allowing himself to take her in again, to see the strong lines of her body, the relaxed muscles of her back, the smile that’s tugging at the corners of her lips.

“Good morning,” she says, with a kind of serenity that often comes to her when she stretches. She loses it briefly when she looks at his face more closely, her smile falling. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says quickly. “Had a--weird dream. But hey, it’s over now.” 

“Do you want to talk about?” Gamora asks. Her hair is in a braid, and it brushes against her leg as she stretches her body along it. 

“Maybe later,” Peter hedges, fixated on that stretch. If he didn’t know better, this could be a typical morning, picked out of any day of those four years they spent together. Gamora usually woke up--wakes up--before him, and she’s often completed her stretching routine or is in the middle of it when he finally joins her in the conscious world. He likes the latter the best. 

He turns on his back, propping himself up on his elbows to more fully take her in because maybe this isn’t exactly the same as a morning from those four years she doesn’t remember, but it’s a morning with Gamora, and that makes him smile. This is the closest to usual they’ve gotten since the snap, so his dreams can go fuck right off. 

“How long you been up?” he asks, just to make conversation as he watches her switch legs. She’s so bendy; he’s always marvelled at that. 

"Not long," says Gamora, though obviously it's been long enough for her to get dressed and begin her stretches, so probably at least a few minutes. "I thought about asking you to braid my hair but, well…" She trails off and gestures vaguely toward him, probably indicating the fact that he was still asleep. 

"Wha -- you did?" he stammers, absolutely thrilled at the thought. Even when braiding her hair had been super routine, his heart had always leapt at the opportunity to do it, at the knowledge that she enjoyed it when he did. 

She nods, pulling her leg away from the wall and sliding smoothly down into a split on the floor, just like it's nothing. Just like she does it all the time. Which she does. "Yes. I -- enjoyed when you did it the other day."

"Hey, I enjoyed it too," says Peter, when he manages to pick his jaw up off the floor again. He's enjoying this immensely-- both the view and the things she's saying. "We should totally do it again sometime. Like, as soon as you want."

“We should,” she says with a soft smile. If he’s not mistaken, she sounds kind of wistful too, like she wants it as much as he does. If only her hair wasn’t already braided, he’d offer to do it right now. 

She stands up from her split slowly, dragging her legs along the floor as she comes up. He recalls times when she would deliberately turn around and face the other way to give him a view of her ass as she did this, and he wonders if they’ll ever get to a point where she feels comfortable enough to do that again. Even if they don’t, he will love her no matter what, support whatever she wants, obviously; but is it wrong of him to miss those other times too? To be sad if they never get them back? The universe already gave him the love of his life back when he thought he’d lost her forever; is he asking too much by hoping to have more too? 

“What’s wrong?” Gamora asks, startling him and making him realize that he’s been drifting into a reverie. 

“Nothing,” he says quickly. He doesn’t want to concern her, or ruin her morning when he already ruined their night, went and cried and made _her_ cry when she’d they’d been having a good, happy moment. Maybe they’ll never get those old times back because he doesn’t _deserve_ them. 

“Peter,” she says sternly, clearly not buying it. 

He sits up, rakes a hand through his hair and leans back against the headboard, aiming for cool and casual. "Nothing! Really. Just thinking about how bendy you are. Especially compared to me. I'm very not bendy."

Gamora sighs. "Thinking about how I am more flexible than you brought you to the verge of tears?"

Peter blinks at her, shocked. She's always been great at reading him -- uncannily good at reading him -- but this is a whole other level. For a second he wonders whether the Stones have given her some sort of novel power. "I -- how do you -- what?"

"Your breathing gets rough when you are about to cry," she says, like it's no more remarkable than any other fact. "I can hear it."

He blows out a breath, trying to get his heart rate to slow before she notices that too. If she can hear the change in his breathing now, then that must always have been the case. "I just -- I'm really sorry about last night."”

“You had better not be apologizing about crying,” she says, in that stern Gamora voice that means she knows that’s exactly what he’s doing and does Not Approve. 

“No!” he says immediately, his instinct to say or do whatever she wants to make her happy. But lying never makes her happy, so he sighs. “Well, yes, but not the crying in itself. Just like...you know, ruining a really good moment.”

“I told you last night that you did not ruin it,” she says firmly. “And I still mean that: you did not.” 

She sounds like she believes what she’s saying so much that it almost makes him believe her too; and he _does_ believe that she believes that, but she’s just too good to him. 

“You were happy,” he points out, trying not to sound whiny or like a broken record, but it’s difficult. “And having a good time, and--enjoying the pictures and stuff. And then I started crying, and that made _you_ cry, and then you had to spend the night comforting me instead of looking at more pictures or doing something else fun. How is that not ruining it?” 

“Peter,” she sighs. He tries very hard not to cry again just from the look of compassion on her face. She gives up on stretching -- another thing he’s ruined for her, great -- and walks over to the bed to sit down next to him. “Would you think _I_ had ruined it if I was the one who started crying first?” 

"No," he says immediately, horrified at the thought. Gamora probably would blame herself, he thinks -- even after four years it had been hard for her to allow herself the moments of vulnerability and release she still so desperately needed. But he would never blame her, would never begrudge her the need for that time. "Of course not. I mean, I never _want_ you to cry but if you needed it, it wouldn't be ruining anything."

"So you’d blame yourself for crying, but not me?" she asks. She's sitting cross-legged on the bed half facing him, but now she crosses her arms too -- not a threat, but a challenge. 

Peter blows out a breath. He knows where she's going with this, but he's already committed to the guilt that he's feeling, not ready to change course just yet. "Well yeah."

"Because I deserve better than you do?" asks Gamora, arching an eyebrow. 

He pouts at her, lets himself talk in the petulant tone he's feeling. "What if I say yes?"

"Oh," she says dryly, surprising him. "Well then clearly you'd be right."

“Really?” he asks. _He_ knows that, but he’s used to Gamora insisting that it’s the other way around, that _he_ deserves better than _her_ , and them eventually agreeing to disagree. 

She rolls her eyes. “Of course not, Peter. I wanted you to see how ridiculous you’re being.” 

He can’t help but let out a laugh; he was not expecting that response, despite the fact that it’s pretty Gamora. He’d spent so many of these past weeks fearing he would never have these little moments with Gamora again that sometimes it still surprises him when he gets to. “ _You_ are being ridiculous,” he tells her, his pout turning playful. 

“I am never ridiculous,” she says primly, poking him in the side over the blanket, making him giggle and twitch. She got him right in one of his ticklish spots, a spot that she had mapped out early on in their relationship but that she hasn’t rediscovered yet. Or at least, he’d thought she hadn’t; is that some memory she got back that she didn’t tell him about? Something instinctive? 

“The way you’ve talked about our relationship before,” Gamora says, before he can get too carried away by those thoughts. “It sounds like it was about us supporting each other, and...being honest. And helping each other. Was it not?”

“Yes,” he admits. 

“So, you let me support you last night,” she says. “And you supported me. That sounds like a good thing.” 

Peter shakes his head, still feeling emotional and pathetic about it. And still kind of stubbornly petulant on top of _that._ Every instinct in his mind is still protesting that it’s time for self-loathing, that all of the things she’s remembered so far only stand to prove how very little he deserves this second chance. “Why do you always gotta be so logical about this stuff?”

Gamora pauses at that, looking genuinely surprised. “I...Am I?”

“You are,” says Peter, his tone completely sincere now, no longer whining or complaining. He might be feeling sorry for himself, but if this is an opportunity for her to relearn something good about herself then he’s damn well gonna take it. “You always have been. Brilliant and logical and sweet. You still are. And I am so, so glad you’re here with me.”

A soft smile curves the corners of her lips, and she reaches out to touch his arm lightly. No poking this time, no tickling, just support. “Then stop feeling guilty.”

Peter sucks in a shaky breath and blows it out again. “Okay. Okay. So maybe last night wasn’t -- ruined. But I did wanna show you some more pictures and we never got to that.”

“It’s a shame that there’s no way for us to do that ever again,” she says, her voice playful but also soft, just like her smile. She’s still got her hand on his arm and she gives it a squeeze, and his heart feels lighter. 

“I actually might be able to make it happen now,” he says lightly. Then, fearing that’s not what she was implying, he adds, “If you want to, that is. You can finish your stretching, I didn’t mean to--”

Her hand comes off his arm and for a split second he misses its warmth before she’s putting two fingers over his mouth to stop him from talking. It works instantly. 

“I want to,” she says, sounding sincere. Her face is also pretty close to his, and her fingers are on his lips, and she hasn’t moved them yet. It takes a lot of restraint for him not to pucker his lips to kiss them, like he normally would. 

After several long seconds, she moves her hand; if he’s not mistaken, there’s a slight blush on her cheeks. She clears her throat before saying, “Those pictures were very nice.” 

“They are,” Peter agrees. He pulls himself all the way up so he’s fully sitting, and he reaches for the holo on the nightstand, eager for a way to make up for -- okay, not _ruining_ last night, but certainly derailing it. 

Hitting the button to power it on, he leans back against the headboard again and holds out an arm to Gamora in invitation. Then he hears her gasp softly. He turns to look at her face before considering the holo's display, so he has a bit to take in the surprise in her eyes and the more-than-slight flush on her cheeks. 

Then he turns and sees what's provoked that reaction: The holo's gone on to the next picture in the lodge album, which just happens to feature him posing bare-assed in front of the camera. All at once the memory comes flooding back so strongly that he can practically smell the scent of wood smoke and fresh linen that had pervaded the room, making him so nostalgic for his childhood home on Earth. He can practically hear Gamora's laugh as she'd swiped the holo out of his hands, turned it on him and begun to take his picture instead of posing herself. He'd been delighted, hamming it up, utterly unconcerned about his nakedness or anything else in the galaxy. Now he finds himself caught again between laughter and tears, staying silent for far longer than he should before he manages to find his voice. 

"Sorry!" he manages finally. "Sorry, I -- I totally forgot you took that!"

She doesn’t respond for what feels like an eternity, during which Peter’s heart practically stops in his chest. He’s too afraid to look at her to find out what her reaction is, but he fears the worst. He knows she was blushing before so she’s probably embarrassed, and oh god, what if she feels pressured or offended? Like she saw so much more of him than she’s ready to? Obviously she doesn’t remember what he looks like naked, and he promised her they’d go slow this time and now out of nowhere she had to see his naked ass -- 

In the middle of those panicked thoughts, Gamora bursts out laughing. “I -- I can’t believe I took that!” she says through the laughter, and she leans her head against his shoulder. He can feel her body shake with her fit of giggles. 

Powerful relief floods through him for the second time this morning and he can’t help but join her, because now that he knows she’s not offended, it _is_ pretty hilarious. A few tears might join in the laughter, but they’re mostly tears of mirth, and blissful relief, and affection for the woman leaning against him. 

“Neither of us could resist,” he says through his own laughter. “I’m the perfect nude model!” That makes her laugh even more, and enjoying this reaction, he says playfully, “Hey, don’t laugh! I am a _specimen_!” 

“It is a nice --” She starts out surprisingly earnest, genuine, then pauses as she searches for the word. He can practically see her struggling for a euphemism, not quite ready to say _ass_ in this context, though she’s been perfectly willing in others. Then she wrinkles her nose at her own plight and dissolves into a fresh fit of giggles. 

“Ass!” says Peter, not so much because he cares about her saying it, but because he’d give just about anything to continue hearing her laugh. It works, her whole body shaking with mirth, so he says it again. “Ass! Booty! Badonkadonk!”

“Stop,” she gasps, though she sounds delighted, if breathless. “Stop, _stop_.”

“Okay,” he says, mock-seriously. “I understand. My ass is overwhelmingly magnificent. So much that you can only withstand its magnificence in small doses.” 

“Peter,” she sighs, wiping at her eyes. She’s still flushed, and he’s pretty sure he catches her stealing a couple more glances at the picture on the holo. He tries to tell himself it’s probably just curiosity on her part, tries not to get his hopes up too much, but...well, she _did_ like his ass in the past, after all. She liked plenty of things about his body.

“You want me to leave the picture up?” he asks teasingly. “Or we can hang it on the wall, if you’d rather be able to look at it whenever.” 

“ _Peter_ ,” she says more firmly, though still with the odd giggle or two escaping. “I thought you were going to show me more pictures.”

“This is more pictures!” he says. But he doesn’t want to actually make her uncomfortable or push her past what she’s ready for, so he says, “Okay, okay. Here’s you chance for one last look at the picture before we move on.”

“You are being ridiculous,” she informs him, but she definitely glances at the picture again. He grins before swiping it away, taking the holo back to the main album screen. 

“Any requests?” he asks, gesturing to the display, where each album is represented by a picture from it. “You wanna look at another trip? Or something else?” 

She doesn’t answer right away, and at first he thinks it’s just because she’s deciding, or because she _can’t_ decide. But then he looks at her, and sees that she seems to be fixated on one particular spot on the display. 

“Is that an album all about...me?” she asks slowly. 

“Oh, yeah,” Peter says, eyes going automatically to it. He smiles fondly, and also wistfully, at the icon, which is a close-up of Gamora with her nose all scrunched up adorably. “That’s my favorite one. Do you wanna see those?” 

“I cannot imagine making that face,” says Gamora, totally making that face as she takes it in. That gives him another pang because it’s _so damn familiar_. That particular picture -- the one he made the album cover what now feels like an eternity ago, or perhaps in an alternate reality -- is named _Adorable Gamora_. She’d adamantly denied her ability to be any such thing at the time, which had only caused him to double down on naming it that. She’d laughed that day too, he remembers. Similar to how she has been just now.

“Well, here’s photo evidence,” he says, because tempted though he might be, he’s not about to point out that she’s doing it now. And he’s definitely not going to pick up the holo and take a new picture of it, though the thought crosses his mind.

“Are they all just -- pictures of me making faces?” she asks, making a slightly different face at that prospect.

“No, no,” he assures her. Though, to be fair, a lot of the pictures _do_ feature her making his favorite expressions, which is all of her expressions. “It’s like -- Important moments for you. And for us. Stuff I introduced you to, things we did together. Some that you told me to take, because you wanted to capture whatever was going on.”

“What was going on there?” she asks, indicating the icon picture again. 

“Okay, so sometimes it was just when I felt like taking a picture of you,” he admits. “What can I say? You’re my favorite thing to take pictures of.” He doesn’t remember taking that one, but knows he took a lot like it, either when she was already making a cute face, or just because he had the holo out and he wanted her to make one. She always complied, though she’d be playfully stubborn about it at first; which was perfectly all right with him, since her stubborn face is also adorable. 

“I am curious about the other pictures then,” she says, a lot more casually than she probably feels. He imagines how strange he would feel, missing four years of memories and faced with the opportunity to hear about so many of them second-hand; how fearful and eager he’d be at the same time. 

“Well, let’s start here then,” he says, half a question. “And if you wanna move onto something else, just tell me.” 

He waits for her nod before he selects that album, and a huge screen of more icons appears. There are far too many to all appear on one screen, but there’s quite a few of them up there, all of them starring the woman at his side. 

She gasps softly, just taking it in. She’s reacting to the sheer number, he thinks, although he can’t be totally certain. And now he can see the fear on her face, the uncertainty, and also the curiosity. But still, she looks amazingly calm, given all of the circumstances. He’d probably be sobbing or something if their positions were reversed. Even so, it’s not lost on him how far she’s come in a few short weeks. She’s looking at this as a window into her life, not insisting that she could never have any relation to this person in the pictures.

“Got any preferences?” he asks, not wanting to push or rush her.

She shakes her head, though. “I don’t -- I don’t know where to begin.”

Okay, so maybe _some_ amount of gentle pushing is warranted. He’s plenty familiar with the way Gamora gets overwhelmed when she has too many choices. He considers for a minute before choosing a picture to start with. He presses it lightly and it expands, revealing an image of Gamora standing on a sandy beach, in front of crystalline water. There’s a look of absolute bliss on her face that makes his throat feel tight. He swallows. “So this was the first time you saw the beach.”

She takes that in for a while before speaking. “Am I...was I...crying?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “You were…pretty emotional.”

“I have been to planets with bodies of water before,” she says after another moment of gathering herself. “Lakes, and ones like that. But never anywhere with a real ocean; a real beach.” Then she glances up at him and shakes her head. “But you already knew that.” 

“I don’t mind hearing it again,” he says honestly. He’ll listen to her talk about anything, as many times as she wants, since that means she’s here with him. 

She bites her lip, and Peter thinks she might cry again just from looking at this picture. He doesn’t blame her; he’s not too far from that himself. He remembers how happy she’d been, going there for the first time; how much she’d loved it when she finally got in the water; the way she’d laughed when they built a sandcastle with Groot later; her peaceful smile when they’d watched the sunset. She doesn’t remember any of that, of course… But she could experience it again. She can experience so many things again. And that’s pretty damn special in its own way, isn’t it? 

“Where was this?” she asks, voice scarcely more than a whisper, still fixated on the image. 

“South Xandar,” Peter answers. “An island called Elilles.” 

“ _That_ is on Xandar?” Gamora asks, surprised -- which is not surprising to him. 

“Yeah,” he says with a fond smile. “You didn’t know it was there before, either.” 

“But you did?” she asks, arching an eyebrow. 

“Oh, no,” he says easily. “I had no idea. But um...I might have learned how much you like water. There was a stream on this planet called Berhert that we went to around the time we got together, and we -- Well, let’s just say we enjoyed that stream a lot. I got to see how happy it made you, and you told me you’d never seen an ocean before, so...I did some research.”

She blinks, looking more surprised now. “On what? Beaches?”

“Yeah,” he answers easily. “I mean, I’d been to the beach on Earth one time with my mom, but that was like...decades ago, obviously. It was great but I barely remember it. And I’d heard about resort planets plenty, but never actually been to one. So I did some research and found Elilles, which seemed like the perfect place. And then we all took a trip there.”

“I bet I enjoyed that very much,” Gamora says, her voice measured, her gaze still fixated on the picture. 

“You did,” Peter says softly. “We all did. We should go again, if you want to.” 

“I would like that,” she says quietly. He gives her an encouraging smile, knowing that it probably took her a lot of effort to say that without adding some sort of caveat, like _but we don’t have to just for me_ or _I do not deserve it_. 

“Do you want to see more from that trip?” he asks her, prepared to switch to that album. They have several beach and/or water based trip albums, in fact. 

“Later,” she says decisively. He doesn’t know if that’s because she’s too overwhelmed to want to see more right now, or because she’s more curious about the rest of this album, but either way, he acquiesces easily and minimizes the picture so they’re back on the icon screen. 

He scrolls down slowly so she can see more; he’d forgotten a lot of these pictures himself, and seeing them all again is making a strange, happy-sad, nostalgic ache take residence in his chest. 

“What is that?” Gamora asks suddenly, pointing to a picture of herself that makes Peter burst out laughing when he sees it. 

“Oh, this is the best,” he says happily, making the image larger. It’s Gamora, no surprise, standing with her hands on her hips, a triumphant smile on her face. What makes this picture special, though, is the fact that she’s covered nearly head to toe in food: noodles, mostly, but also sauces, some bits he can’t identify, the odd piece of bread here and there. “You won a food fight.” 

She blinks, still taking that in, her lips twitching with what he knows is repressed laughter. Still, she looks more surprised and confused than anything else -- not even satisfied yet with the fact that she won some sort of competition. “A what?”

“A food fight!” he repeats brightly. He remembers the first time he’d explained the concept to her, though it hadn’t been on the particular occasion captured in the photo. She’d claimed to have no idea what he was talking about, to be completely unfamiliar with any traditions even vaguely resembling a food fight. But then after he’d described it -- particularly the ones the Ravagers used to have -- she’d admitted that she and Nebula had once gotten so angry at one another on a mission involving a stake out that they’d pelted each other with the only supplies they happened to have on hand: ration bars.

“Did I -- Did we -- encounter enemies that...had an arsenal of _food_?” she asks, huffing out a soft laugh that’s more breath than anything else. She’s still trying to suppress her reaction, he can tell, but the absurdity of that statement is pushing her over the edge.

He snorts. “Only if you consider a moody Groot an enemy.” 

“Oh?” she says, finally letting her giggles escape, which is absolutely adorable and makes him smile so wide his face hurts. “That does sound--very formidable.” 

“Oh, for sure,” Peter says, only mostly joking -- Groot has always been pretty fierce, even as a sapling. “He came in second in that fight. He won his fair share, too.” 

“So it is a friendly thing?” Gamora asks. Her voice is still wobbly with the leftover laughter, but it’s quelled mostly to a smile now. Still adorable. 

“Mostly,” he tells her, _also_ only mostly joking. “You can get pretty competitive.” 

“I have no idea what you mean,” she says loftily. 

“Sure,” he teases. “I guess that means you don’t want to hear about _how_ you won?” 

She twists her mouth in that way she does sometimes without even realizing, when she’s debating how stubborn she wants to be. “I did not say that.” 

“So you do, then?” he asks, more seriously. He loves teasing her, but he doesn’t want to give her more information than she actually wants, pressure her into hearing things about herself that she doesn’t remember. 

“Yes,” she says, also more serious. “I like hearing about the things that made me happy...make me happy. Especially when it is you telling me.” 

“Oh,” he says, his heart actually bursting a bit with how much he loves her. He wants to kiss her _a lot_ but he restrains himself. Instead, he holds his arm out in invitation, because she’s really way too far away. “Well, lucky for you, I like telling these stories. I’ll tell you stories all day long.”

“I may take you up on that,” she says. She leans into him and he wraps his arm around her shoulders, and they settle in for an epic tale.

* * *

She's dreaming about Peter, as she almost always seems to be these days. This one isn't a nightmare, though, doesn't feature snow or a cliff or weapons that turn into bubbles. It doesn't feature Thanos, either. In fact, all of those things are completely absent, not even a consideration. In the dream, she and Peter are lying in the grass on some unidentified planet, his Zune resting on his stomach and the headphones shared between them as they listen to a familiar song. 

_Oh, my darling_  
_Oh, my baby_  
_You got the moves that drive me crazy_  
_And on your face_  
_I see a trace of love_

She looks over at Peter, the lazy smile on his face sending a flush of warmth through her and--

And then she wakes up in their darkened quarters on the Quadrant. She has a second to feel a bit of disappointment that the dream is gone, but then she registers that she's awake because Peter has woken her, and he has that same smile on his face right now. 

"Hey," he breathes. "Were you dreaming?"

She nods, surprised by both the question and the answer she finds. "Yes. I -- It was a good dream."

“Oh, I’m sorry I woke you up from it,” he says, wincing. But it only takes him a second to regain his smile. “But I have something to show you! Come on!” 

He’s kneeling beside her, and the bed bounces a bit as he does in his excitement. Gamora’s a little tired from being woken up in what is either the middle of the night or very early morning, judging by the ship’s light cycle, but Peter’s excitement is contagious. Besides, waking up to him is the best way she’s ever woken, no matter the time or the reason. 

“What is it?” she asks, not moving yet, but watching his face instead. 

“You’ll see, come on!” he says, tugging on her shoulder before standing up off the bed. “I’ll show you!”

“All right, all right,” she says, amused. She gets up too, and finally notices that Peter is already dressed -- well, he’s put pants on, and he definitely fell asleep in his usual nighttime ensemble of a t-shirt and boxers. Impressive, that he’s able to get up and get dressed without waking her. She wonders if that’s a usual occurrence, or if she was especially deeply asleep. 

“Come on!” he says again, taking her hand and starting to pull her towards the door. 

“Hang on!” she says with a laugh. “Let me put some shoes on if we’re going to leave the room.”

“Okaaaaay,” he says, letting go so she can do that. He’s rocking back and forth on his feet, lips pressed together, trying to hide his excitement and doing a very poor job of it. 

“What is going on?” she asks as she pulls her boots on over her leggings. 

“It’s a surprise!” Peter says, the _duh_ in his voice unspoken but clear. “I can’t tell you, that would ruin it.” 

“I have never had a good surprise,” says Gamora, just in passing as she zips up her boots. 

Apparently he takes it more seriously, though, because he’s frozen when she finishes with her boots and stands up from the edge of the bed, such a sudden change that she nearly runs into him. 

“Sorry!” he gasps, catching her by the shoulders to steady her as she abruptly stops. “Sorry. I -- We’re gonna change that, okay? This _is_ a good surprise.” He hesitates for a beat, then continues. “But if you want -- if it makes you too uncomfortable -- then I’ll tell you what it is right now.”

She considers, then shakes her head. “No. No, I trust you. And since I have never had a good one, it seems like it’s time.”

“Definitely,” he agrees, his smile back. He offers her his arm gallantly, and she takes it, allowing him to finally lead her to the door.

She feels oddly like giggling as Peter leads her through the halls of the ship, walking as fast as he can without it being considered running. After a while, she realizes that there’s no reason for her _not_ to giggle if she wants to, so she lets it out, and to her delight, Peter giggles too. He looks younger when he smiles like that; cute. 

Aside from their childish giggling, the halls are all quiet and empty. It’s definitely still the middle of the ship’s night cycle, and she should probably still be asleep, but she finds that she couldn’t care less. She feels remarkably light and carefree, unconcerned with anything that isn’t Peter or whatever wonderful thing he’s about to show her, because she’s positive that it will be wonderful. Everything Peter has shown her has been, despite how mundane some of it might seem to anybody else. 

The past few days, since he’d started showing her those pictures -- which was also wonderful -- have been pretty quiet aboard the ship, as they continue to look for information about the elusive Sons. Peter’s taken advantage of that time, showing her things he knows she will love (or things she already loves, depending on how she thinks about it), like food, and games, and all the ways he can braid her hair. And apparently now, he’s going to show her something else. 

“Almost there!” Peter announces eagerly. 

“Are we going to the cockpit?” Gamora asks, as that’s the only place she can imagine going on this path. 

“Maaaaybe,” he says coyly. Which she’s pretty sure means _yes_. 

“We are definitely going to the cockpit,” she insists, enjoying his reaction to her guessing. If he really wanted to be sneaky, he could take her along a different path, she thinks. He could lead her elsewhere first as a distraction or a decoy. Then again, he seems more eager to get to their destination than he does to keep the deception going. 

“Oh, are you sure?” he asks, in the same tone.

“Yes,” she insists. “But I have been to the cockpit before, so how is that a surprise?”

They just so happen to be approaching the entrance of said cockpit right now, and Peter stops in the walkway to it, feigning horrified shock that’s so exaggerated it’s absolutely comical. “But what if that _is_ the surprise? Surprise! We have a cockpit on this ship! A pit of --”

“ _Peter_.” she interrupts, shaking her head and laughing again in spite of herself. And then she hears it: soft strains of music coming from inside the cockpit, the volume low but still loud enough for her enhanced ears to detect.

_Moon appears to shine, and light the sky,_  
_With the help of some fireflies_  
_I wonder how they have the power to shine, shine, shine_

__

“Oh,” she says softly, admiring the pleasant melody, the lovely words. 

“What?” Peter asks, and she hesitates. She’s not sure if he realizes that she can hear the music from this far; well, she is sure that he _would_ know, if he thought about it, but he’s probably so distracted by getting her to her surprise that he’s not thinking about it right now. And she doesn’t want him to think the surprise is compromised or anything, since he’s so damn excited about it. 

“Nothing,” she says, and squeezes his hand. “Are we going or not?”

“Yeah, okay!” he says, all eagerness and happiness again, tugging her the rest of the way, the music becoming clearer and clearer the closer they get. 

When they finally round the corner at the end of the hall and come upon the cockpit, it’s immediately apparent why he’s brought her here. There’s the music playing, of course, but the thing that takes her breath away is the large viewing window that takes up the whole front of the cockpit; or, more accurately, what she can see out it. 

It’s a nebula, she knows, but it’s like no nebula she’s ever seen before, and they appear to be flying right towards it; it takes up almost the entirety of the window. It’s shaped almost like an eye, with asymmetrical rings and off-shoots around it; and it’s almost completely _silver_. 

She gasps audibly, the whole sensation so surreal that the sound of it feels foreign in her ears. "Oh, _Peter._ "

His grin only grows larger at her reaction. "You like it? I saw we were gonna be in the area when I was on pilot shift earlier. Thought I might need to make a little adjustment in our course."

"Did you?" she asks, taking a few steps closer to the big port window. They're getting closer to the nebula, though slowly. 

"Possibly," he says coyly. "Maybe." He takes a few steps closer, watching her eagerly, that expression of absolute reverence on his face again. She thinks under other circumstances she might feel judged or pressured, but his gaze feels soft. Inviting somehow. 

"Did you also time our arrival to be in the middle of the night?" she asks. They're essentially in a holding pattern right now, flying around various areas of the galaxy to avoid having to pay for docking while they bide their time searching for the Sons. 

"I might have," Peter says slyly. "I might possibly maybe have wanted to make sure we got to see this in private."

“Oh,” she breathes, so touched that she can’t manage anything else for a moment. The fact that he did all this as a surprise for her is so overwhelmingly sweet, and kind, and...romantic. That is the word.

“Let’s get closer,” he says, putting his hand on her back to gently guide her closer to the window. She follows easily; she’d follow him anywhere, she’s pretty sure. 

“It’s beautiful,” she says softly. 

“It’s called the Silver Nebula,” he tells her. His hand is still on her back, and she leans slightly towards him so their sides touch. “For obvious reasons. It’s one of those rare nebulas that looks pretty without using a special lens or anything. No offense to your sister, of course.” 

“Peter,” she says, on a small laugh. 

“Obviously she’s included in those rare ones,” Peter says generously. 

“I’m sure she would be happy to hear that,” Gamora says with an affectionate shake of her head. She can’t tear her eyes off of the window in front of them, though. They’re close to the nebula now, at the point where it takes up almost the entire window. More details become apparent as they get closer, more shades of silver. She knows all of it is probably very far and spread apart, but it looks like all one unit from their vantage point. 

“Silver is -- very sacred on my homeworld,” says Gamora, when the silence between them has stretched out for some indeterminate period, the song finished and changed to another one. She isn’t listening to the lyrics right now, though. She’s listening to Peter’s breathing and heartbeat, and looking at all the brilliant shades of the nebula as they start their flight path through it. It seems impossible that it could be simultaneously so many colors -- a sheen of pink here, a tendril of green there -- and yet still completely silver. It seems like a miracle.

“I might have known that,” he breathes, which makes her glance away from the port window and up at him. He’s been looking at her the whole time, she realizes, and everything about it is soft. She leans in even further, wrapping an arm around his back and resting her head on his shoulder just because she suddenly needs to be touching him as much as possible.

“Did you -- show this to me before?” she asks, unable to help her curiosity. 

“No,” he says softly. “No, I -- I just learned about it the other day. And I decided I wanted to show you something new.”

“Thank you,” she whispers, nuzzling her face into his shoulder as much as she can while still maintaining her view out the window. “I love it.”

“I’m glad,” he says, almost as quietly. She feels his cheek against the top of her head. She has to fight the urge to close her eyes in contentment, wanting to watch the beautiful nebula outside that he’s worked so hard to show her. 

They watch in silence for a while. She’s content to stand there for the rest of the night and watch this with him -- watch _anything_ with him. As long as he’s here with her. Standing there with their arms around each other, leaning against each other, she gets the vague feeling that they’ve done this before, that she’s felt like this before. But she probably felt like this a lot during those four years she’s mostly missing. 

After they’ve been flying through for a while, and they’re still in the middle of the nebula, the song changes again and she feels more than hears Peter’s breath catch in his throat. 

“What?” she asks softly, not moving her head. 

“This, uh, this is Sam Cooke,” he says slowly. “The singer. We danced to a song by him--early on.” 

“Oh,” she says, processing that. The singer’s voice is lovely, and the melody is soft and slow and soothing. “But not this one?” 

“No, it was another one,” he says. “Sounded similar, though.” 

She listens more carefully to the lyrics as the first verse ends, and putting it all together sends a fresh wave of emotion through her. 

_If I go a million miles away_  
_I'd write a letter each and every day_  
_'Cause honey, nothin',_  
_Nothin' can ever change this love_  
_I have for you_

Letting the words and the melody wash over her, she does sort of close her eyes, the odd not-quite-familiarity of the notes transporting her to another time, to a planet she can’t name -- a balcony overlooking an impossibly beautiful landscape. The colors are as numerous as in the nebula, though far more vibrant, to the point that their beauty is almost painful to look at. And Peter is there too, his arms around her, his cheek resting against her head and -- She shakes herself, not wanting to miss too much of the present.

“Was this on my playlist before?” she whispers, because she’s suddenly struck by the lyrics of this song, by how very meaningful they are _right now_.

“No,” Peter admits, his voice still quiet but even more filled with emotion somehow. “No, it -- it’s new too. I mean, it was on the Zune. But I just added it to your list.”

“You are still adding to it?” she asks, something constricting in her chest at that, but in a pleasant way. 

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I always will be, I hope. Songs just keep finding new ways to make me think of you. Not that there’s much that doesn’t.” 

Gamora bites her lip, so overwhelmed with how _sweet_ that is that she can’t respond for fear of actually crying. In lieu of being able to say anything, she squeezes him with the arm wrapped around him, hoping that somehow conveys all the things she can’t articulate. 

“Speaking of, uh, this song,” he says, after a few more lyrics. “Or--well, this singer. Do you want to… You don’t have to say yes or anything, I understand if it’s too much or -- But if you wanted to, we could--”

“Yes,” she says, forcing herself to find her voice. “Yes. I will dance with you.” She tilts her head to look up at him, so he can see the answer in her eyes too. She knows what he’s trying to ask, and as adorable as he is when he’s stumbling over his words, she doesn’t want to make him right now. 

He smiles slowly, until it’s as wide as it can be, taking up his whole face, and it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. “Yeah?” 

“Yes,” she repeats firmly. A few weeks ago she’d told him that dancing was ridiculous, that she was not the type of person who would ever indulge in it -- let alone in the past, let alone with _him._ And now, when it feels like the only right thing to do, like the most natural decision she’s ever made, she can’t help but think about all the ways her reality’s been shifting lately. Like somehow waking _into_ a dream, or like a fog being lifted after a very long time, or like…

Like reclaiming a piece of her soul that’s been gone for so very long she’d almost forgotten to miss it. 

“Do you need me to show --” Peter begins, but then breaks off as she effortlessly shifts into position, lacing the fingers of one hand with his and resting the other on his shoulder. His eyes widen and she thinks he might just cry -- but he gets it back to a smile an instant later, albeit still a watery one.

“I think I’m good,” says Gamora. And she _is_ good -- she is good _at this_. She’s remembering in movements as they start to sway together, very slowly at first. But she’s remembering in images too, more details from that impossibly beautiful day on that breathtaking planet.

_If you wanted_  
To leave me and roam  
When you got back  
I’d just say welcome home 

She hears the lyrics that are playing now, but her mind also supplies her with the words _bring it on home_ , and the image of Peter smiling at her...well, pretty much exactly the way he is now. 

“When we danced to Same Cook the first time,” she says, watching the fond smile on his face grow even wider, “where were we?” 

His smile turns a little sad then, and she immediately regrets asking; anything that makes him the slightest bit less happy right now is a mistake. But he squeezes her waist, as if sensing her need for reassurance. 

“Uh, it was Ego’s planet,” he says. He sounds almost self-deprecating, as if it’s somehow his fault where it took place. “Or, I guess just Ego. Which is still super weird to think about.” 

“Then we don’t have to think about it now,” Gamora says firmly, though still in a whisper. She doesn’t want to speak much louder, for fear of breaking this moment between them. Somehow her feet know what to do better than her mind does, moving fairly easily in sync with Peter’s. His hand on her waist, and in her own hand, feels natural and right, like it _belongs_ there. Her hand feels right at home on his shoulder, too. 

It had felt that way then as well, she remembers now. She remembers the similar melody, the same voice, and their hands in the same places. She remembers how good it felt...and also fighting against that feeling. She was scared; about Ego, yes, but also about just how good it all felt, and what Peter was implying as they danced. Excited, too, and so in love with him. That part was what scared her the most. 

She’d wanted very much to kiss him then. She remembers looking at his lips as they’d danced -- she’d looked at them at least as much as she’d looked at the beautiful landscape around them. No, that’s wrong. The landscape seems beautiful only in hindsight, only because she lacks the rest of the context -- the experience -- right now. At the time she’d _only_ been looking at Peter, had only cared about him, about what she’d wanted _with him_. It had seemed so wonderful and yet so impossible, so _dangerous._ She had wanted to kiss him then, but she hadn’t.

She wants to kiss him now too, she thinks, as she allows her body to continue moving to the music, allows Peter to spin her outward and then back in, catching her in his arms. She has wanted to kiss him for days now, perhaps even longer if she allows herself to admit it. She wants to, just like she had during the dance she’s remembering, but she’s afraid now too as she was then. Thanos is gone, she knows -- or she’s trying to convince herself she knows -- but his ghost is still haunting her on some level. The fears that this might be too good to be true, might not be real _for her_...those all come back to Thanos. 

“Are you good?” Peter asks her, voice soft and low. He must see some of her thoughts on her face, or her heart is beating so loud he can hear it even without enhanced ears. Or he just has some kind of Gamora-sense. 

“Yes,” she whispers, because it’s true. She’s better than she’s ever been, largely because of him, and there’s no reason for anything to hold her back. Especially not Thanos. 

“Good,” Peter says. His smile is so gentle and kind. His entire face is. _He_ is. 

They’re moving so slowly now she doesn’t know if it can really classify as dancing; they’re basically just holding each other and swaying slightly, barely more so than they would from a strong breeze. They seem closer to each other too. She wonders if it just seems that way because they’re not moving as much anymore. But no, surely she didn’t have to tilt her head back this far to look at him just a few seconds ago. 

“Peter,” she breathes, with no real purpose or intent; she just feels the need to say it. 

“Yeah?” he murmurs. She sees his eyes flick down to her lips and that does it. She summons every ounce of courage she can find and stands up on her toes to press her lips to his. 

For one instant she’s terrified that the bottom is going to fall out again, that he’s going to reject her, that it will still turn out she isn’t the one he wants right now. He freezes for just a second, just long enough for her heart to skip a beat -- and then he responds like it’s far from the first time. He kisses her back the same way he does everything else -- slowly and gently at first, so that she has time to change _her_ mind if she wants to. She doesn’t, of course, and Peter doesn’t change his mind either, curling his fingers into her hair and deepening the kiss.

She’s been so afraid that she wouldn’t know how to do this, that it would be awkward, that he would have an incongruous amount of experience with this, both in life and with _her_. It’s kept her from acting on that desire for days -- weeks -- now, but like so many other things, it turns out to be completely unfounded. Kissing him feels the same way that dancing does: like an instinct, something ingrained even more deeply than memory. Kissing him feels like coming home.

She’s disappointed when he pulls away, but he is breathing pretty heavily, lacking the enhanced lung capacity that she has. And really, when she sees the way he’s smiling, the joy shining in his eyes, it’s worth it. 

“Hi,” he says. His smile is so damn wide it’s almost goofy, and she’s fairly sure hers looks the same, though she would never have described any aspect of herself as _goofy_ before. That’s just what Peter brings out in her. 

Instead of responding, she kisses him again, figuring that’s long enough to breathe. 

This one doesn’t last as long, and he’s full-on panting when they pull apart, but Gamora has just found her new -- or renewed, she supposes -- favorite thing to do. She’s pretty sure she could spend the rest of her life kissing Peter. Or at least the rest of the night. 

“Hi,” she finally replies. His hair is disheveled, she notes, then registers that it’s because she’s got one hand buried in it. The look of bliss on his face might owe something to that, too. 

“I love dancing,” he pants. She huffs out a laugh, then dives in to kiss him again, short kisses that allow him to get air in between. 

She’s suddenly addicted. If she goes for too long without kissing him, she’s definitely going to explode or something. She has no idea how she’s managed so long without it. She forgets the view, forgets everything that isn’t Peter. Everything pales in comparison to this; even the wonders of the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, we'll probably be taking a week off posting next week! We're a little behind, we need some time to catch up! So expect the next chapter on the 28th! :)


	26. Chapter 26

“Are you sure?” asks Peter, as they pause outside the doorway to their quarters. Not the quarters where they’ve been staying for the past week, but the real ones. _Their quarters._ The ones they spent the last four years in, customized in about every way possible. Also the ones where Gamora last had a disastrously bad reaction, so he wants to make sure that he isn’t about to push her into a repeat of that, isn’t about to ruin another really, _really_ good night with sadness.

She gives him a look. “I suggested this, didn’t I?”

“Well yeah,” he allows. She’d been the first one to even _mention_ revisiting their old quarters tonight and she had in fact said it with a good deal of confidence. She’s seemed pretty confident about everything they’ve been doing tonight, which has been a little bit more dancing and a whole lot more kissing. 

“Do I often suggest things that I don’t truly want?” asks Gamora, her tone more curious than adversarial.

“Well, no,” he says, because she doesn’t. That hasn’t stopped him from seeking reassurance plenty of times in the past, though. 

“Then why do you think I would now?” she asks. She looks almost smug, like he’s proven her point for her, and it makes him smile; it’s an expression that’s very her. 

“I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “I just wanna make sure you’re not...feeling pressured or anything.” 

Her expression softens, not that it was hard before. “I promise I’m not. I want this.” 

“Okay,” he says. He reaches down to tangle their fingers together. Their hands have been hovering close together this entire time, and he only has to move an inch to connect them. Her smile grows when he does. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while now,” she informs him. They’re not quite holding hands, more like holding fingers, lacing and unlacing them as if they’re playing some kind of game. 

“Yeah?” he asks eagerly. Apparently his mind would like some more reassurance; that’s a thing that’s very _him_ , he thinks with a sigh. 

Gamora doesn’t seem to mind, though. She’s smiling playfully, as their fingers play. “Yes. I’ve also been thinking about kissing you for a while.”

His grin expands to the point that it’s nearly hurting his cheeks. “How long is a while?” 

 

She considers for a moment, her smile just as wide but also pensive. “I think -- I think I first had that thought the night that you told me about blanket forts.”

“You mean--” he begins, about to correct her, and then sees a gleam of mischief in her eyes that warms him just as much as if she’d kissed him again. “Oh my god, you did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“I am renaming it,” says Gamora, with that impish grin that he loves so damn much. “I have decided that the Zehoberei version of the structure is called a blanket fort, because Zehoberei names make sense.”

For a beat, all he can do is gape at her in delight -- He loves it when she talks about her homeworld in a happy way. He loves it when she reclaims that culture as her own, even in something as small as this. But also, he’s just registered what she’d actually said about the first time she’d wanted to kiss him: when he’d _told_ her about the fort. Not when they’d built their first one. Not all that recently.

“Wait,” he manages finally. “Wait, that was like...weeks ago. That was before the Xurcoils!”

“I am aware of that,” she says, clearly amused, and pleased with his reaction. 

“You’ve been thinking about it that long?” he asks, unable to get over it. Which is probably ridiculous, since he knows that she thought about kissing him even earlier than that the first time around. But that had surprised him, too. 

“How many times do I have to say it before you believe it?” she asks. She’s still smiling, though, not like she’s irritated with the repeated questions, but like she’s enjoying it. 

“Hmm, I don’t know,” he says, wanting to keep this going. “It’s hard to know what you’re thinking sometimes, you know?”

“Is it?” she asks. Their fingers are fully interlaced now, and she’s tracing the back of his hand with her thumb. 

“Mhmm,” he hums, his eyes flicking between their hands and her mouth. “Do you know what _I’m_ thinking about right now?”

“Let me guess,” Gamora says, then to his absolute delight, she stands on her toes to press her lips to his. It’s a short kiss, but just like every other time they’ve kissed tonight -- and really, every time they kissed in the four years before this -- it makes him melt. 

She raises her eyebrows expectantly when she pulls away, staying on her toes so their faces are still very close together. 

“I was actually thinking about bacon,” he says, because he can’t resist. “But that’s good too.” 

"Peter!" she scolds, hand on her hip, looking equal parts scandalized and affectionate. She's basically still in pajamas, though she's got her boots on. The height difference between them would be even bigger without, he knows all too well. Still, there's something distinctly vulnerable about this whole thing -- the slight flush on her cheeks, the spot where her shirt's hitched up a little, displaying the tiniest glimpse of silver. The places where her hair is a bit disheveled from his fingers winding through it. 

"What?" he asks innocently, never wanting this moment to end, though for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he has hope that more good ones will follow it. 

"Don't you dare hustle me," she retorts, and pokes his side right in that ticklish spot she absolutely _must_ instinctively remember. Either that or she's got some sort of preternatural tickle sense. 

He'll have to ask her about that one of these days, but right now all he can do is double over laughing. "Okay, okay, I surrender! I _was_ thinking about kissing you!"

“I know,” she says, smirking. She’s got her arms crossed in triumph, now that he’s released her hand to protect his sides. His hand feels colder, but she looks downright adorable, so it’s a fair sacrifice, he supposes. 

He straightens up, but keeps his arms protectively crossed over his midriff to ward off any tickle attacks. “I think about it kind of a lot,” he says, as though confessing a secret. 

“Yeah?” she asks. She’s still in that triumphant position, but if he’s not mistaken -- which he’s positive that he isn’t -- she doesn’t sound one hundred percent sure of that, which surprises him. He’d thought he’d been so obvious about his desire that she was sure to have known the entire time. That’s another thing he’d also thought the first time around, though; he must really not learn. 

“Yeah,” he says sincerely. He releases his arms, standing normally. “I love kissing you. Always have, always will.” 

She bites her lip, releasing her arms as well so they hang by her sides. “Can you guess what I’m thinking right now?” 

He grins, and leans down to kiss her, grasping both of her hands in his this time. This one goes on longer, and it’s more tender, slower than before. 

When they pull away, her lips tug up at the corner. “I was actually thinking, are we ever actually going to go inside? Or are we just going to stand outside the door all night? But that is good too.” 

Peter shakes his head mock-sadly. "Now who's the one hustling here?"

"I have no idea what you mean," Gamora says in her own most innocent voice, which is both totally unconvincing and adorable enough to make him melt all over again. "It is not my fault that you guessed wrong."

He sighs. "Well, I'm thinking the answer is yes, because then we could be kissing in bed. Or in a pillow -- sorry, _blanket_ \-- fort if you prefer."

She grins at that, but then pauses. "I know that you said -- last time we moved quickly--"

"Oh!" he interrupts, guessing where this is going. "No worries, we're still not gonna do anything you're not ready for. I'd be happy just to kiss you for the rest of my life if that was what you wanted."

Her face softens, though just a moment ago it hadn't seemed possible that it could be any softer. "I appreciate that. But I would also like to go inside."

“Anything you want,” he relents. “Let’s go in.”

She gives him a look, not moving to do so yet. “Are you sure _you_ are okay with this?” 

“Yeah, of course!” he says quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. It’s not that he’s _not_ okay with it; he’s been wanting to come back in here with her since...well, since this whole thing started. 

“Really?” she asks, searching his face. “I know I suggested it abruptly, I didn't mean to--”

“No, Mora, really,” he insists. “I want to, I swear, it’s just… Kind of seems too good to be true, you know?”

“Yes,” she says gently. She squeezes his hands. “I know that feeling. I fear the same thing.” 

“I know,” he says. He squeezes back. “Let’s prove ourselves wrong. Together?” He lifts their joined hands to the door handle, and waits for her nod before pushing open the door. 

The room is just as he last saw it; full of their stuff, and memories that only he has. _So far_ , he reminds himself. Because even if she doesn’t get back the memories they made together in here, they will make new ones. 

“Oh,” she says softly. Her eyes are wide, and he follows her gaze to the large window on the other side of the room, where they can still see the nebula as they fly away from it. 

“Well that sure does feel like fate,” says Peter, because he can tell now from the angle of the ship that they would not have been able to see that view had they come in here just a few moments earlier or later. He wraps an arm around Gamora’s shoulders and presses a kiss to her temple, watching in silence with her until the last of it has faded from view. 

“Thank you,” she breathes, when it’s time for the stillness to break. 

“What for?” asks Peter, though he’s pretty sure she means the nebula, the surprise, the thought he put into finding something that was not just beautiful, but also meaningful for her. He’s done a pretty darn good job of all those things, if he does say so himself.

“For -- giving yourself to me,” she says instead, which both surprises him and makes his throat fill immediately with emotion. Her expression turns shy a second later. “I mean -- I think that’s what you’re doing. I don’t mean to presume -- “

“Always,” he says vehemently. “Forever.”

Her eyes are watery, and she doesn’t respond right away; can’t, perhaps. He certainly knows the feeling. 

“I’m yours for the rest of our lives,” he tells her, cupping her cheek to make sure she’s looking at him, so she can see the sincerity in his eyes. “Longer.” 

“Likewise,” she says, her voice a hoarse whisper. Her eyes are still wet, but she’s managed to keep her cheeks dry. Still, he rubs his thumb along her cheek tenderly and presses a soft but lingering kiss to her lips. 

The little sigh she lets out when they separate makes him want to wrap his arms around her and never, ever let go. But they didn’t come in this room just to stand here, barely a step away from the door. Nonetheless, he holds her a little tighter. 

“I never quite finished the tour,” he says, after indulging his desire to hold her for a few more moments. 

“You did not,” she says mildly, not quite meeting his eyes. “That is my fault, and I apologize. I was not...feeling as well as I am now.” 

“Hey, don’t be sorry,” Peter says quickly, kicking himself. Maybe that was the wrong thing to bring up. “I’m not looking for an apology. If anything, it was my fault. I was pushing you way too fast.” 

“You wanted good things for me,” she counters, meeting his eyes with confidence now. She has always been more comfortable with reassuring him than in forgiving herself her own perceived faults. “I can’t fault you for that, even if I was -- unprepared to receive them at the time.”

Peter swallows. He’s opened this can of worms, so now he feels the need to finish this confession. “Yeah, I definitely did. But I also -- might have wanted you to remember the good times we had just because -- you know, I missed you.”

She makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, blinking back tears again. He has a moment of fear in which he worries that he’s just ruined everything, that her reaction is a negative one, but then she manages to find her voice, though it’s watery. “Well I can’t fault you for loving me, either. Even if a part of me still feels like I don’t deserve it.”

“You do,” says Peter, relief washing over him, mixed with endless affection and gratitude for her. “And I’m gonna spend the rest of eternity proving it to you if that’s what it takes.”

She wipes at her eyes and smiles again. “Well, maybe you could start by showing me that bathtub you mentioned?”

“I would love to,” he says sincerely. His hand drifts to the small of her back to guide her to their attached bathroom. “It’s the best bathtub in the whole galaxy, you know?”

“I am sure it is,” Gamora says indulgently. “You said you got it for me as a surprise?”

He nods. “Yeah, you loved it! Even though you told me it was too much. But you were happy I got it anyway. And you’ll love it again!” With that, he pushes open the door to the bathroom and steps inside. 

She gasps, pausing just in the doorway. He’s glad she stopped because he feels his breath catch too at the sight of it. It’s exactly the same as it was when he last saw it, but that’s kind of the point; he hasn’t been in here since that day they got to the distress call, and it’s pretty jarring to see it again. But Gamora is back to enjoy it.

His eyes go to all the things he knows she loves about this room: The bathtub is round and huge, much larger than they need, but hey, so is the Quadrant itself. There are all kinds of soaps and shampoos and stuff lining the sides of the tub, as well as on the shelves of the standing shower they have in the corner. The counter is large and long, also lined with products and unlit candles. There’s fluffy towels on the rack, and a towel warmer right next to it. Gamora really loves that thing. 

“Gods,” she breathes finally, her eyes still wide and her tone filled with awe. “This is -- _so much._ ” 

“Yeah,” Peter echoes in the same soft tone. His hand is still on her waist and he moves it gently up her back in a soothing motion. Her breathing is quick and shallow but she isn’t tense, or at least not in the same way that she was the first time he tried to give her a tour of their quarters. She’s overwhelmed for sure, but he doesn’t think she’s about to freak out or run. Her reaction is familiar, actually -- it’s the same shocked surprise he basically strives to elicit from her as much as possible. So he’s pretty sure it’s a good thing. “You deserve it. But there’s a normal shower over there if you ever just wanna use that real quick.”

She looks in the direction he’s indicating and then huffs a short laugh. “I take it we didn’t use that much?”

Peter glances over there too, at the comparative lack of decoration, personalization, and bath products. “No. No, not so much. And hey, if you wanna give the tub a test, I’ll totally give you privacy to do that.”

Gamora smiles, but shakes her head. “Not right now, at least. Though...Perhaps we could light some of the candles?”

“Whatever you want!” he says enthusiastically, and guides her the few remaining steps to the counter. “So, these ones are out because they’re your favorites, but we have tons more in the cabinets! And out in the bedroom.”

“I am sure these will be good,” she says, looking at the selection. There are quite a few spread out on the counter; she had a lot of favorites. She loved to set a few down along the edge of the tub before a bath. Right now, though, she looks a little overwhelmed by all the choice, or perhaps all the nice things she’s being presented with all at once; or both. “Are they all… Do we light them all at once? Or only one?” 

“You usually pick a few,” he explains. “Like, you pick a combo that goes good together, and light those few. You’re super awesome at figuring out that kind of thing. I never could tell which ones were gonna smell good together.” 

She looks conflicted, and he hopes he’s not putting too much pressure on her. “I also remember some of the combos you liked,” he adds quickly, “if you want me to just pick?” 

“Could I smell some of them?” she asks tentatively. Her hand twitches at her side as if she wants to reach out but is afraid to, or is afraid she can’t. 

“Of course!” he says. He reaches out and grabs the nearest one, which is scented like a type of flower native to Xandar. He knows she can probably already smell all of them with her enhanced senses, but she always liked to bring them close to her nose so she could distinguish one smell from another, and also just to savor it. 

She smells that one, eyes half-closed, and makes a soft sound of pleasure in the back of her throat. Then she sets it down on the counter, apparently ready to test some others, to either combine with that one or surpass it. Peter’s prepared to hand her candles all night if that’s what it takes to make her comfortable, but she reaches for the next one herself, her movements only a bit hesitant. 

She sniffs the second one, then glances at the label, brow furrowing so that he can see it in the mirror. “Well it smells very nice, but it does _not_ smell like any ‘clean linens’ I have ever encountered.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, affection swelling in his chest again as he remembers having this conversation before. “Yeah, well, a lot of the names don’t make much sense, which has definitely always bugged you. We had a whole discussion about whether you wanted to only buy ones that _did_ make sense, but you decided the scents were so good that it balanced out. Of course, it’s up to you whether you wanna keep all of them now!”

She sighs. “I do like the smell a lot.”

“Here’s another ridiculous one,” says Peter, pointing to a candle that claims to have the scent of ‘moonlit romance.’ “I mean, what would that even smell like?”

Gamora picks that one up, inhales, and then freezes. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, immediately concerned. She’s staring down at the candle with wide eyes, and he looks at it too, searching for what it is about it that could have upset her. Does she for some reason not like the scent anymore? Does it bother her so much that the name doesn’t make sense? Has he pushed her too far after all, showing her stuff she’s not ready for? 

But when they both lift their eyes off the candle, when she finally looks up at him, she doesn’t look upset; she looks...amazed, almost. Awed, a little. Pleased. 

“You handed me this,” she says slowly, and for a moment he thinks she’s accusing him of something, but _she_ is the one who grabbed that candle, so that doesn’t make any sense. But then she continues, “And you asked me what made it smell different from sunlit romance, or morning romance, or--or quickie in the shower romance.” She shifts awkwardly when she says that last part, but she keeps her gaze steady, and though he feels himself blush, he’s smiling too. And, as with pretty much every time she gets a memory back, he sort of feels like crying from joy as well. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, also amazed, and awed, and pleased. “We were shopping.”

She nods. “At a very -- _interesting_ store, I seem to recall.” She still looks a bit uncomfortable, a bit shy about bringing it up, which totally makes sense, now that the memory is coming back to him too. But mostly she looks intrigued, and a bit amused, and also...yes, definitely still happy.

“Yeah,” he says again, because she’s looking at him expectantly now, either wanting him to confirm that part of the memory or fill in details that she’s missing. “It was um -- So on Earth they’d call it an ‘adult store,’ like...as in adults only. I never understood that as a kid, I kinda put it together after I’d gotten to space and seen the equivalent on other planets. On Xandar it’s called a ‘love shop’ and that’s where we were when we bought that candle. It was a real nice one, though. Not the gross shit you’d see somewhere like Contraxia.”

She nods, her gaze a bit distant, probably because she’s thinking about the memory. Probably because she’s picturing it. “Did we...uh...only buy candles there?” She flushes, not quite meeting his eyes in the mirror. Then she adds quickly, “if the answer is no, you don’t have to show me those things right now.”

“No,” he says honestly. He’s blushing a bit too. “We may have bought some other stuff.” Then, deciding he doesn’t want to confuse her by hedging, he says, “Yeah, we did.” 

She’s still not meeting his gaze, but she nods. Her fingers are playing with the candle, probably absentmindedly. Her blush is absolutely adorable. He wonders if she’s imagining -- or even remembering -- some of those other things. He knows he is. 

“There was soft music playing in the store,” she says after a pause. His heart leaps; she’s remembering more. He wonders if that will ever cease to surprise him, no matter how often it keeps happening. He thinks not. “It felt very romantic.” 

“And sexy?” he asks with a teasing grin. It had certainly felt that way at the time; the walls were a deep red color, and the music was clearly what he would call ‘sexy-time music.’ And of course all the stuff they were surrounded by. 

“Yes,” she says quietly, smiling while still blushing. She clears her throat, seems to be powering through saying this: “I remember...being excited to go back home to try out some of the other things.” She’s got a tight grip on the candle, and now he _really_ wants to know what she’s imagining and/or remembering. 

“I don’t think the time we got the candle was our first time there,” says Peter, trying to remember himself. He knows for sure that they made multiple trips to that store, and that they got some really good stuff there. It’s all blurred together in his mind now, though, so it’s hard to recall the details of what went with this candle. 

“No,” she says thoughtfully, her fingers playing along the outside of it. “No, I don’t think so either, but it _was_ the first time we’d purchased and tried -- well, that I’d purchased and tried, I don’t actually know about you -- It was...a device that vibrated?” Her blush deepens and she puts the candle down abruptly, wiping her palms on her leggings. 

“Oh,” says Peter, that particular memory rushing back to him. He can’t help the fact that he’s still grinning, because all of it is sweet and good and...well, pretty damn hot. “Yeah, that was a good one. Is a good one, we still have it somewhere.”

“I’m sorry,” she says abruptly, turning around to face him directly, though she still can’t quite meet his eyes. There’s tension vibrating through her now. “I’m sorry, I -- I shouldn’t be talking about these things when I am not ready to -- when I don’t know if I will ever be ready to -- I am not trying to mislead you.”

“Hey, hey, no, you’re not,” he says quickly. “Mora, really.” He cups her face in his hands and ducks his head until she looks him in the eye. “Talking about this kinda stuff is not misleading or anything like that, okay? I promise, I don’t feel misled just because you mention something that relates to sex.” 

“It feels as if I’m--just teasing you or something,” she says. “By bringing up things that I don’t--” She breaks off on a sigh.

“You’re not, babe,” he says firmly. “It’s not like we aren’t both aware that we’ve had sex before. You just happen to not remember it right now. And you can talk to me about anything, anything at all.” 

“I know,” she says softly. She sounds and looks sincere, but his need to clarify asserts itself anyway. 

“But if you don’t wanna talk about it for _you_ ,” he says, “then that’s different! You can also _not_ talk to me about anything if it makes you uncomfortable or--”

“It doesn’t!” Gamora says quickly. “Or--it does, but not in a bad way.” She makes a frustrated noise. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” he assures her with a fond smile. He takes her hands again and squeezes them gently. “Hey. It’s good for us to talk about these things, yeah? Even if you never feel ready, or you decide you never actually want to have sex, we should be able to talk about what your boundaries are, or what you _do_ want from me.”

“I appreciate that,” she says softly, swallowing. “But it doesn’t -- feel unfair to you? That I am reminding you of these things when I am not ready to act on them?”

“No,” he says firmly. “You don’t owe me anything, okay? No matter what we talk about. No matter what we do. I want whatever you want to give me, but that’s -- That’s _it_ , Gamora. No pressure. No expectations.” 

She swallows hard. “I have never had that. Ever.” Then she reconsiders. “I mean -- not that I can recall. I don’t doubt that you showed me the same respect before.”

He nods. “Well, I sure hope I did.” Then he decides that this situation desperately needs some levity. “So, what do you think? Do clean linen and moonlit romance go together?”

She wrinkles her nose. “Well, the concepts should, in theory. But the candles most certainly do not.”

He snorts, full of affection. “Okay, well, let’s find some that do.”

“Okay,” she says, with a smile that he thinks is also full of affection. “Are there any others we bought on that...trip?”

“I don’t know about that trip,” he says, delighted that she’s willing to bring up the subject again. “But we got this one at that same store.” He hands her another candle, this one called ‘firelight,’ and watches as she smells it. 

Her shoulders actually relax visibly when she does, and he’s pleased that this scent still calms her. “This one is also very pleasant,” she says. “But again, it does not go with the others.” 

“We’ll sniff every candle on this ship if that’s what it takes,” Peter vows, which surprisingly makes Gamora frown. 

“I’m sorry, this is probably boring you,” she says, setting that candle down. “We don’t have to--”

“No, hey,” he says quickly. “It’s not! I mean it, Gamora, I will gladly spend hours doing nothing but watching you smell candles. Anything I get to do with you could never be boring.” 

She bites her lip and he can practically see the debate in her head, between her own self-doubt and her desire to believe him. He’s attempting to come up with other ways to convince her of his sincerity when her mouth stretches into a shy smile again. 

“Okay,” she says, grabbing another off the counter. This one is orange, and he remembers the scent is something citrus-y and tropical, though he doesn’t remember what it’s called and can’t see the label past her shoulders. She makes a soft sound of pleasure, but sets it back on the counter a moment later.

“Not good?” asks Peter, wondering if he’s misinterpreted her response.

She shakes her head. “No. No, I love it. I just -- want one that will go with any of the others I’ve tested so far. Wait, no. I want one to go with the romance scent. Because that -- feels right for the moment. But that orange one most definitely does not go with it.”

“Well, that’s fair,” says Peter. The one called moonlit romance is sweet and sort of earthy, if he’s remembering correctly. Definitely not going to match with anything fruity. Then he has another thought, as he watches her reach for yet another candle to sniff. “You know, this used to be part of our bedtime routine pretty much every night.”

“What?” she asks over her shoulder. “Smelling candles?”

“Well, maybe not smelling quite this many,” he admits. “Because you’d basically figured out your favorite combinations after a bit. But you’d pick the combo you were in the mood for -- no, _we_ were in the mood for. And then we’d take them out to the bedroom and light them, unless we were taking a bath first, in which case we’d do that.”

“That sounds nice,” she says, casting a wistful look at the tub. He doesn’t push her to try it, though, knowing it’s too soon for that, either alone or together. Soon, though, he hopes. “Was that part of… You said we had a routine for preventing nightmares?” 

He nods, watching her sniff and reject another candle. “Yeah, that’s where our whole bedtime routine came from. I looked some stuff up and found out you’re supposed to be in a relaxed mood before you go to sleep. So if we had time we’d take a bath, then light the candles and play some soft music. Oh, and we have a white noise machine too, that makes relaxing sounds to fall asleep to. There’s this one that makes an ocean sound, that one’s your favorite.”

“Oh,” she says softly, definitely wistful. “I have never -- well, I do not remember ever hearing the ocean. I suppose that I have.” 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “But you hadn’t when we first got this. You really liked it anyway.” That’s an understatement, really. He remembers first playing through all the noises on the machine for her, and the way she’d paused and nearly been moved to tears by the ocean one. She always loved water. 

“That sounds lovely,” says Gamora, in that same tone that tugs at his heart. He doesn’t get a chance to respond though, because the next candle she picks up makes her gasp in delight. She turns around still holding it, grinning. “This one. _This_ is the one that goes with moonlit nonsense.”

Peter arches an eyebrow, smirking at her. “Moonlit nonsense? That another Gamora Rename Special?” He’s pretty sure she didn’t just forget what the candle actually says on its label. In fact, now that he thinks of it, he’s pretty sure she renamed it before too. 

“Well, romance does not have a smell,” she says confidently. “Which means its name doesn’t make any sense. So yes, I am renaming it.”

“Does that make the linen one ‘fresh nonsense’?” he teases.

She wrinkles her nose, which has always made her look absolutely adorable to him. “Perhaps.”

“Besides,” he continues, “how do you know that romance doesn’t have a smell?”

Now it’s her turn to arch an eyebrow, studying him intently. “Well...I am fairly certain all of the things you’ve done tonight were romantic, were they not?” She doesn’t give him a chance to answer that before she continues. “And I didn’t notice any particular associated smell. But...should I have? Do Terrans have...I don’t know, romance pheromones or something?”

“No,” he says with a snort. “Though, I do kinda think _you_ smell like love.” 

She makes a face. “What? Zehoberians do not have romance pheromones either.”

He grins; this is something he told her early on, but of course she doesn’t remember. He’s happy to explain it to her again, though. “When you haven’t just put on lotion or something, you smell kinda like this Terran flower called a rose, and on Terra, roses mean love.”

“Why?” she asks, just as he knew she would. 

“I don’t know,” he says with a shrug. “Because they’re pretty and you give them to people you love on dates and stuff. We actually found a candle that smells pretty similar.” He grabs that one from the back of the counter and hands it to her. 

She sniffs it with a slightly skeptical look on her face, but her eyes brighten when she does. “It smells very nice. Though I don’t think it smells like me.” 

“You never did,” he informs her. “But it totally does. Well--you smell better.”

Her blush is back, but she doesn’t like displeased; just shy and cute. “I...thank you, I suppose. Even though love does not have a smell. But this candle does go with the others.” She places it next to the two she’s already decided on. 

“Well,” says Peter, pushing his luck just the littlest bit, “you most definitely _do_ go with moonlit romance.”

The shy, cute look gets a bit more intense and she shakes her head affectionately. “Thank you. And -- I do like the way you smell as well, though I have no comparison or metaphor to use with it.”

He grins, immensely pleased. “Why thank you, Gamora. I definitely smell way better thanks to you.”

Now she looks confused again, though still not in a bad way. “Did I...change your smell somehow?”

He laughs, a bit embarrassed at having opened this subject, but mostly proud and pleased to share. “Only in that you taught me to enjoy showering and bathing and indulging in nice hygiene products way more than the Ravagers did. Plus, with a girl like you? How could I not wanna look good?”

“A ‘girl’ like me?” she echoes, her tone quizzical again. 

“It’s um...it’s a saying on Earth,” he explains, feeling the now-familiar bittersweet ache of nostalgia. This is yet another conversation they had once before. He wonders for half a second whether she’ll eventually get all the original memories back, whether she’ll ever share the odd contrast of not-quite-same-exchanges he’s experiencing now. “I used to call you ‘my girl.’ Which is kinda like...like girlfriend and boyfriend, but better.”

She still appears confused. “Why is it better?”

“I don’t know,” he says honestly. “It’s just like...a nickname, I guess? It’s a thing I heard on Terran TV and in movies and songs and stuff. And I liked calling you that.” 

“Oh,” she says softly. He hopes he hasn’t made her uncomfortable by telling her that, but hadn’t he _just_ told her she should bring up anything she wanted to talk about, no matter the subject? Besides, she still looks shy more than anything. A shy Gamora is such a rare occurrence around anybody but him. “You… You could again. If you wanted to.” 

His heart leaps into his throat, but in a good way. He’s pretty sure his smile is so wide it should be stretching over the bounds of his face. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she confirms, with a tentative smile. “If you want to.”

“I really do,” he says. He works hard to resist the urge to kiss her until he remembers that he doesn’t have to anymore and leans down to do just that. He can feel her smile against his lips until they both relax into the kiss, slow and tender and sweet. 

When they pull apart her smile returns, also slow and tender and sweet. “I would like to see the rest of our bedtime routine,” she says quietly, their faces still so close together that he can feel her breath against his mouth when she speaks. “If you are willing.” 

“Absolutely,” says Peter, practically glowing at that request, and at the fact that she wants to be called his girl again. “So, there’s a very important first step to this routine. Like, really extremely important. If we don’t do it just right, then the whole thing is -- Well, it’s still good but not _as_ good.”

“What is that?” she asks, her expression very serious, her breath brushing his cheek. 

“This,” says Peter, leaning in to kiss her yet again. He’s not being totally honest, about this being a regular part of their routine, but he just can’t resist. Both for the kiss itself, and for the way that she laughs as he pulls away, soft and also surprised. Delighted, he’s pretty sure. 

“That is a good start,” she agrees, then kisses him once more, quickly. “Just to make sure.”

“Well,” he says warmly, “we are _definitely_ off to a good start. So, next we take the candles out there and light them.” He takes two of the ones she’s selected, leaving the third one for her. 

There’s a shelf over the bed designed specifically for this purpose. He sets the candles on it and waits for her to do the same. Then he lights each one carefully and activates the forcefield that protects against dripping wax or escaped flames. 

She inhales deeply, and her eyes seem to close of their own volition as she takes in the combined scent of the lit candles. Her shoulders visibly relax, even though he wouldn’t have called them tense before. “It is a very nice smell.” 

“Yeah,” he says softly, watching as her eyes slowly open. “It’s a good combo.” It’s definitely one she’d chosen before, which doesn’t surprise him, but does make his heart do a happy little leap. “The effect is best like this, though.” 

He touches one of the holopads on the wall and dims the lights so they’re not quite as dark as if they were going to sleep right that second, but dark enough that the candles are providing the main source of light. 

Gamora lets out a soft gasp. “Oh. That is beautiful.” The light flickers over her face, seems to dance in her eyes; while she stares at the candles, he stares at her. 

“Yeah, it is,” he whispers. 

She does look at him then, and bites her bottom lip. “So...what is next?” 

This time he _does_ resist the urge to kiss her, because he’d promised her he’d show her this routine, and as much as it does often involve kissing, that’s not technically part of it. “Well.” He clears his throat. “That depends. If we’re gonna be up for a while still, we’ll put on some music, some of the softer, slower stuff.” 

“Did you want to do that now?” she asks, a bit absently. She’s still studying the candles, and probably breathing in the scents as they mix more and deepen. The flames are sending soft shadows dancing across the room, across her face, giving it the same beautiful, ethereal quality he’d felt while they were looking out at the nebula earlier.

“I don’t know,” Peter says thoughtfully. “Do you want to be up for a while still? It’s pretty late.”

She yawns as if on cue, and he’s reminded with a pang of the game he once played where he’d try to touch her tongue very lightly before her mouth closed. She’d always managed to catch him, reflexes lightning-quick, but he’d kept trying all the same.

Now she blushes, no doubt thinking that yawning is a show of weakness she is not accustomed to being able to safely show. “I guess not. We _did_ already have quite a bit of music earlier. And dancing.”

“True,” he agrees, smiling as he remembers the music, and the dancing...and the kissing. “Okay, so then the next thing we do is turn on the white noise machine. You want to hear the water?”

“Yes, please,” she says softly. 

The ‘machine’ is really just a small holo, but in the shape of a small cube instead of just a flat-faced square. They had chosen it because it reminded Peter of Terran alarm clocks, but obviously way more high tech. He just taps the top of it to turn it on. 

The ocean sounds come on immediately, already on that setting, since it’s the one they used last. It’s the one they used the most often, so it’s hardly surprising, but it causes another pang to hit his chest; it’s yet another reminder of the way they left things in here. 

But he doesn’t have time to dwell on that, because he’s watching the way Gamora’s face transforms as she takes in the sounds. He certainly wouldn’t have called her face tense before, but it visibly relaxes as the sound hits her; her mouth opens a bit, her eyes widen and tear up. _Moved_. He’s pretty sure she had the exact same look on her face the other first time she’d heard it. 

“It sounds beautiful,” she breathes. 

“You’ll see it,” Peter tells her, rubbing her upper arm comfortingly. “Again.” 

“I would like that,” she says. She clears her throat, as if getting herself together, and tears her eyes away from the machine to look up at him. “What is next?” 

"Well --" He hesitates, not sure if he really ought to tell her the next part right now. He doesn't want to overwhelm her, but he also doesn't want her to feel like he's been dishonest, and hasn't he just encouraged her to talk about anything and everything?

"Well?" she echoes, her voice soft but firm. 

"Well, usually I'd give you a massage," says Peter. "I know that you um -- you tend to be really tense, and the implants in your spine hurt you."

Her breath catches audibly in her throat, her face full of surprise. "Did I tell you that?"

He nods. "Yeah, you did. You didn't want anything really invasive done, so we never figured out a way to totally get rid of the pain. But the massages made it better, at least long enough for you to fall asleep more comfortably. So we did that every night that we had time. We don't have to do it now unless you want it though."

She bites her lip, that familiar expression she gets when deciding between something she really wants and is simultaneously scared to have. 

“No pressure,” he continues quickly. “We also don’t have to do it as—intimately as we did before.” 

“Intimately?” she repeats questioningly. 

“I mean—like, all over,” he says awkwardly. 

“Oh,” she says. She clears her throat again. “I don’t think I am ready for _that_ —not that it does not sound pleasant.” 

“No, yeah, I totally understand,” he says, telling himself not to be disappointed. “I didn’t mean to—“

She silences him with a finger to his lips and a decidedly shy smile. “I didn’t say I’m not ready for _anything_. Just the...intimate part, as you said. I would not say no to _any_ massage.” 

He smiles slowly against her finger, and when she takes it away, he says, “Oh! Yeah, hey, whatever you want! Whatever you’re comfortable with!” 

“Well,” she says slowly. “Are there any other parts of the nighttime routine we should do first?” 

“Nope,” he says, trying not to show how eager he is. “We’ve got it all covered.” 

She nods, pausing to take a deep breath. “Okay...presumably we should attempt to get some more sleep at some point tonight.”

“Probably,” Peter agrees, though he doesn’t really feel one bit tired right now, far too hyped up on the joys of getting to watch her take all of this in. Also on kissing. He is most definitely hyped up on kissing Gamora, much as he basically lives his entire life perpetually in that state. Then again, if she wants to sleep, he’s not about to discourage that. He’s also not about to turn down an opportunity to be in bed with her in his arms.

“So,” she says hesitantly, “maybe we could -- get acquainted with the bed? Or -- re-acquainted, I guess. And I also -- would not turn down a short massage.”

“Absolutely!” he says, delighted that she’s suggested all of those things, so very different from her overwhelming guilt and fear at the sight of this place just a short while ago. She’d gotten comfortable pretty quickly the first time too, with his encouragement, but that doesn’t mean he’s not still thrilled to watch it happening again.

Gamora’s already in her sleep clothes since he’d woken her up to go see the nebula, so she just has to take off her boots, and all he has to do to get in his is take off his pants. He does so quickly, but has plenty of time to notice the way Gamora’s eyes follow the progress of his pants, lingering on his thighs. 

She flushes when she lifts her eyes to his again and sees his grin, so he decides not to tease her about it, much as it pleases him. Instead, he just hops onto the bed, not doing a very good job of not appearing overeager, and sits down with his back to the headboard. He spreads his legs and pats the space in between them on the bed. 

“C’mon!” he tells Gamora. “You sit here.” 

“Okay,” she says, doing so gracefully, if a bit tentatively. She sits in front of him with her legs crossed, and he has to resist the urge to wrap his arms around her and hold on tight. Later, he reminds himself; he gets to hold her soon. For now, he gets to do something else for her. 

“Do you need me to do anything?” she asks, glancing back at him over her shoulder. She’s still tentative, unsure, and Peter wants to fix that as soon as possible; the whole point of this is for her to relax. 

“Nothing at all,” he tells her. He leans forward to kiss her shoulder blade, then puts both hands on top of her shoulders and begins with a light touch to ease her into it. 

She exhales shakily, a tremor running through her whole body. He’s pretty sure it’s a good thing, but he pauses anyway, wanting to be absolutely sure.

“You good?” he prompts. He still has his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, and he can feel that she’s shaking the tiniest bit.

“Yes,” she breathes, her voice soft and filled with emotion, reminiscent of her reaction when she first heard the water sounds a few minutes ago. 

“But?” he asks, running his hands over her shoulders again and trying not to be too sad when he feels how tight they are, how much the muscles must ache. She has never known anything different, he tells himself, or at least not that she can recall. Soon she will, though, because he’s going to make damn sure of it. “What is it?”

Gamora shakes her head, takes another more intentional breath and blows it out. “It’s just -- I have never had anyone take care of me like this. I mean -- I suppose my parents did when I was a child, but I can’t remember. And I know that you did before -- in a time that I have yet to remember. And you did again after the Xurcoils attack but it wasn’t...It was not quite like this.”

“I know,” he assures her, since she seems to be having trouble explaining it. “I get it.” He’s not sure he could entirely explain it himself, but he gets it. This is...just because; he’s not trying to comfort her over anything in particular, but just because he loves her, because she deserves it. And that’s something she got overwhelmed by even with four years of experience of it, so no wonder she’s overwhelmed now too. 

“It’s good, though,” she says quietly. “I--Please keep going?”

“Of course,” he says, firming up his touch again. He’s still massaging gently, still wanting to ease her into it. He can feel as well as hear her exhale, and the tiny noises that she’s probably not even aware she’s making as he goes, increasing the pressure bit by bit until he’s really working the knots out. 

“You are good at this,” she whispers. He can hear the emotion in her voice and it nearly makes him cry, too. Probably the only reason he isn’t is because he’s so damn cried out already. 

“I try,” he says modestly. He’s still going, but he can also hear the exhaustion in her voice, and he’s reminded that he woke her up in the middle of the night. “Do you wanna lie down now?” 

"I don't want you to stop the massage," says Gamora, ducking her head in what he recognizes as a gesture of shame. That is a large thing for her to admit, especially with the tears he can hear in her voice. 

"Well," he says gently, "I've got some good news, then. You can have both. A massage lying down! Oh, and hey, I forgot to show you how awesome this bed is!"

She arches an eyebrow. "I can see the bed right now. Does it have hidden secrets?"

Peter grins, delighted that she's asked. "Well, we bought it together the same time we got the tub, so that makes it awesome all by itself. But also, the firmness is adjustable for both the bed and the pillows. And there's a built in heater, so the mattress can keep you warm."

" _You_ are warm," says Gamora, and her tone just about makes him break down. 

"I--thank you," he breathes, telling himself to keep it together. "But, you know, the bed is too. Also, the comforter is something called a weighted blanket. It's something I read about, it helps with nightmares too."

“You put so much thought into this,” she says, that note of awe in her voice making this attempt to keep it together very difficult. 

He clears his throat, trying to clear some of the emotion out of his voice. “Well, we did a lot of the research together. But yeah, I wanted to make sure you got all the things you needed. Need. You thoroughly deserve it all.” She had been reluctant to purchase many of items she considered too luxurious, or that were for her benefit rather than his, so that research he had to do himself. 

“I will work on believing you again,” she says softly, which he knows is actually a lot for her at this stage. 

“I don’t think you ever quite believed me before,” he tells her, a little sadly. “But you did get closer. And I am happy to spend the rest of my life proving it to you.” 

She’s quiet for a moment, and he continues rubbing her shoulders lightly, giving her time; if that also gives him time to gather himself and blink back tears, then that’s just a bonus. 

“Well,” she says at last, her voice just a level above a whisper, “I will be happy to spend my life trying to believe you. And I am happy to lie down with you now and continue the massage. And learn more about this magical bed.” 

Peter freezes, unable to stop himself from having the thought that at one point she _did_ spend the entire rest of her life trying to believe it, that at one point far too recently for comfort, the rest of her life had a definite end point. He still doesn’t know quite how to think of that -- aside from horrific -- or of this, of the woman who is with him now. He has no more doubt that she is the same person, has the same heart and the same soul, and increasingly the same memories, too, except -- Except there’s that strange fracture in the linear flow of her life, the tragedy that’s shattered them both in different ways, and he still doesn’t know entirely how think of that. 

All at once, a thought comes to him from the depths of his own past, a forgotten childhood fantasy: Perhaps this is not so different than what life might have been like for his mother, had she somehow survived. Had she somehow been saved by a miraculous surgery or other kind of treatment to get the tumor out of her head. She’d been forgetful toward the end, had even failed to recognize him or his grandpa at times. Perhaps he’d have had to re-teach _her_ all the details of her life. He would have given anything to have that chance.

“Okay,” says Peter, clearing his throat and forcing himself to shake off those thoughts. This is about Gamora -- about _him_ and Gamora. No point getting lost in the past, or in existential crises. “So, I’m gonna lie down, and then you kinda -- lie on top of me so I can still reach your shoulders.”

“Oh,” she says, biting her lip. She doesn’t say or do anything else, and it takes Peter a moment but he finally realizes that, in his reverie, he’d forgotten that even though they’ve been cuddling for the past few nights, they haven’t done it quite like that. 

“Is that okay?” he asks, worried he’s done what he’d promised not to and made her uncomfortable. “We can always do it another way, or just stay like this--”

“No, it’s okay,” Gamora says quickly, cutting him off before he can babble too much; he’s always appreciated that about her. “I want to. Just...show me?”

“Yeah, of course,” he says. “Here, I’ll go first.” He leans back, sliding his legs under the blanket as he does. When he’s lying down all the way, he holds the blanket up with one hand and pats his chest with the other. “Now, you lie down. You don’t have to go completely on top of me if you don’t want to! You can just go like, mostly on top, or on my side. On your stomach.” 

“Okay,” she says, still biting her lip. She does so slowly and tentatively, not like she doesn’t want to, but like she’s afraid of messing up. He gives her an encouraging smile, and she gives him a shy one back before she settles herself fully on top of him, her head on his chest. She’s stiff at first, but she does relax once she’s fully settled. 

“Just like that,” says Peter, wanting to reassure her. He runs a hand over her back, just trying to ground her, not massaging again yet. He knows how vulnerable that makes her feel and he doesn’t want to add too many layers of it on top of one another. She’s still more tense than he’d like. “You okay? You can still change your mind.”

“It feels nice,” says Gamora. “I just -- Am I not...putting uncomfortable pressure on you? Lying on top of you like this?”

He has a powerful wave of what feels like deja vu, until he realizes that he _has_ lived this moment before with her, though at that time it had been after sex, lying naked in the old bed that occuppied this room before they’d made it truly their own. She’d been worried about hurting him then too, hadn’t quite learned the limits of his Terran physiology. 

He smiles. “No, not at all. You’re stronger than me, but you weigh a lot less. It feels nice to me too. Kinda like the blanket does for you, speaking of which -- “ He breaks off and pulls it over her, letting her feel the effect of it. 

He can tell she’s felt it when she sinks down even more on top of him, her body relaxing, limbs loosening so she’s practically draped over him, not holding herself carefully like she was before. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s done it; the blanket did always have this effect on her before. 

“It is very nice,” she admits. She adjusts her head a bit, and this she has to realize she’s doing, so she’s nuzzling it closer to his neck. He can feel her breath against his neck, which is one of his favorite feelings in the universe. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, although the feeling of her on top of him is better. “It’s warm, too.” 

“It is,” she says. “But you are still warmer.” 

“Mora,” he breathes, because he’s too overwhelmed to say anything else for a beat. He presses a lingering kiss to the top of her head while he gathers himself. “I’m happy to be your heater.” 

He finally put his hands back on top of her shoulders under the blanket, remembering the whole purpose of this. “Is it okay if I keep going now?” 

“Yes,” she says quietly. “Though I cannot promise I won’t fall asleep.” 

He smiles fondly. “That makes two of us,” he says, starting up the massage again. He’s perfectly content to do this for the rest of the night until they both drift off; and then for the rest of their lives after that.


	27. Chapter 27

“Oh, how nice of you to join us,” Nebula says over her shoulder as Gamora enters the Benatar’s cockpit right behind Peter. She’s sitting in the pilot’s seat, Rocket beside her, making adjustments on the panel in front of her so effortlessly that it’s hard to imagine her anywhere else.

Gamora’s heart is pounding in a way that she’s certain her sister can hear. She’s late, which is a thing she is very unaccustomed to being. If she had ever dared be late under Thanos’s hand, she would have been punished severely. 

Today, though...well, as she is reminding herself so often lately, Thanos is dead. And she is no longer living in the cold darkness of Sanctuary, but in the captain’s quarters on the Quadrant. Which just so happen to have an incredibly comfortable bed...and a boyfriend -- though it still feels odd to use that word -- who is excellent at giving massages and braiding her hair. And so...well, they are possibly maybe a few minutes late, and her sister is possibly maybe never going to allow her to hear the end of it, judging by the expression currently on her face.

“It is nice!” Peter says in an affected, overly-cheerful tone. “Isn’t it? A nice morning, a nice mission, a nice time for you to give me back my seat…”

“Oh,” Nebula says sardonically, turning in the seat to glare at him. “So you show up late, after most of the work has already been done, and expect to just take the pilot’s seat?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Peter says, in his _duh_ voice. “It’s my seat. And you could have waited, we were only five freakin’ minutes late.” 

“We have been in here for seven minutes!” Drax informs him. 

“You’re not helping,” Peter tells him. 

“I was not trying to,” Drax says with a shrug. Peter sighs. 

“Nebula,” Gamora says sternly, narrowing her eyes at her sister. 

Nebula shifts her glare to her, but it’s weak, and Gamora can already tell she’s won; though she doubts her sister was really intending to withhold the seat from Peter for long. 

“Fine,” Nebula says, standing up. “We are approaching the coordinates, ready to detach from the Quadrant.” She steps away from the seat and gestures grandly to it while still glaring daggers at Peter. Peter tilts his head up high and struts up to the seat in an affected manner that makes Gamora smile. Nebula then rolls her eyes at Gamora, presumably for the smile; or just because she feels like it. 

Nebula goes to her own seat farther back, and Gamora is left standing next to the empty seat that was...is, she supposes...hers, but that she hasn’t sat in the entire time she’s been...back. She has no memory of ever sitting in it, but her feet seem to have carried her here of their own volition, despite the fact that she sat in a spare seat at the back before. 

What she _does_ remember is the anxiety and confusion and pain this dilemma had caused before, and not just for her. There was really no way for her to miss the argument Peter and Rocket had just before their first job together as something resembling a team. True, Rocket has been...well, more civil toward both her and Peter recently, which she thinks is probably the closest he ever gets to friendly with anyone other than Groot. But she hasn’t forgotten the nastiness she’d overheard, or the comments about her wanting Peter’s _junk_ , either. 

Mantis had referred to this as _your chair_ , she remembers abruptly as she desperately tries to redirect her thoughts away from wondering whether Rocket and the others are all assuming that she and Peter are -- At the time, she had been unwilling to consider this seat as her own, had still felt like there was an immeasurable chasm between her reality and the life they’d been telling her she’d had before. 

But now -- Now she glances at Peter, sees his nod, and sits down in it without a word.

She keeps her eyes forward determinedly, half-expecting somebody to say something, or do something, like tell her she shouldn’t be there, or ask her what the hell she’s doing, even though nobody has shown any signs of not wanting her there for a while now. Nobody says anything, though, not even Rocket. And when she looks back, all that happens is that Peter smiles at her again, and Mantis gives her an encouraging thumbs up. Nobody else seems to notice or care. 

She sinks back into the seat in relief and takes stock; it’s the exact same design as the seat in the back she sat in before, which is the same as all the other seats as well. But it feels different for some reason; more like _hers_. Something just feels right about being here. She can so easily look back and see Peter, which she likes. She feels like she actually _belongs_ there, and that makes her smile. 

“All right,” Peter says, and she looks back at him to see him punching some more info into the holo in front of him. “Let’s get this rescue mission going. Preparing to detach.”

“It’s been prepared,” Rocket tells him. Peter sticks his tongue out at him but otherwise ignores him.

Gamora faces forward again, telling herself not to be nervous as she’s suddenly reminded why they’re here. Their days of laying low and waiting on additional information about the Sons from a safe distance have finally come to an end. None of Nebula’s contacts had been able to help, in the end, and the Nova Corps hadn’t been able to find anything from their sources either. Their next step had been to send someone Dey described as _’one of our best officers’_ to go undercover as a weapons designer and get himself kidnapped by the Sons in order to obtain further information about them. Which seems monumentally stupid to Gamora, but it’s not as though anyone asked her opinion.

In fact, the Nova Corps hadn’t told them anything at all about this plan until it had gone wrong. Until they’d needed help. She’s starting to wonder if that’s typical of this team’s relationship with them -- Of _her_ relationship with them. She’ll have to ask Peter about that later. Right now they are approaching the last known coordinates of the unlucky Corpsman, hopefully to rescue him and not to get themselves captured or killed.

“We’re heading out, Krags!” Peter says, his finger depressing the button on his console that activates the comms. “Wish us luck!”

“Good luck all o’ ya!” comes Kraglin’s voice overhead. “I’ll be waitin’ for ya when you’re done!” 

“We do not need luck!” Drax exclaims, but without pushing the comm button; so he basically just wanted to say it. Gamora privately thinks that a little luck wouldn’t hurt, if she believed in such things. It’s hard not to remember the last time they came up against the Sons. 

“It’s an expression, man,” Peter tells Drax, piloting them away from the Quadrant and towards the coordinates they each have displayed on their screens. 

They’re flying at a much faster pace than the Quadrant was, and Gamora can’t help but watch Peter as he pilots them through. This is him in his element, she realizes; he seems to be enjoying himself, and he’s definitely skillful, though they’re mostly on a straight path right now. 

“We are in the Magoc System,” Nebula points out, her tone decidedly displeased. 

“Are we?” Peter asks, then glances down at his holo and curses under his breath. “Damn. Figures these low-lives would hang out in a solar system like this.” 

“What is wrong with the Magoc System?” Mantis asks. 

“Every planet in it is a piece of shit,” Rocket says disdainfully. “Dinky and crappy and full of criminals.”

“I am Groot,” he mumbles, as usual not taking his eyes off his video game. 

“I’m hardly a criminal anymore!” Rocket protests. “And even when I was, I was way better than the losers in this system.” 

“Really?” says Nebula, smirking at him. “When was the last time you stole something, Rocket?”

“Stealing doesn’t count,” Rocket evades, in what sounds like a well-practiced answer.

“Stealing is most definitely a criminal act,” says Drax. “Now, _murder_ , when it is justified--”

“It wouldn’t have happened to be on Contraxia, would it, Rocket?” Nebula interrupts.

Rocket doesn’t get a chance to answer, though, because a moment later, they’ve arrived at their destination, the ship coming to an abrupt halt in view of...a planet.

“That’s no moon,” breathes Peter, in a voice that sounds far more grave than the situation really warrants. True, they’ve been expecting to find the Sons’ ship here, but he sounds...Well, he sounds entirely unlike himself. Like he’s emulating something else, or maybe referring to something she doesn’t understand.

“Of course it is not a moon, it is a planet,” says Drax, helpfully.

“And we weren’t lookin’ for a moon in the first place, we were lookin’ for a ship,” says Rocket, looking at Peter like he’s even stupider than...well, than Rocket seems to think everyone else is at all times. 

Peter sighs and shakes his head, disappointed. “Guys, come on. Star Wars reference? Anyone?”

“Not that flargin’ movie again,” Rocket says with a dramatic eye-roll. “None of us have ever seen it!”

“I’ve told you about it enough times!” Peter protests. “You should know it by now.” He looks to Gamora for support, but all she can do is grimace. She’s sure he must have told her about this _Star Wars_ before, but she has no memory of it. She wants to be able to support him, but she’s the least likely of everyone here to get that reference right now. 

He looks a little sad, which makes her feel guilty, but then he gives her a smile and a shake of the head, as if to say _Don’t worry about it_. 

“I remember it!” Mantis declares, raising her hand, enthusiastically bouncing in her seat. “There is a moon full of fluffy little bears in the movie!” 

Peter sighs, eyes closing briefly to summon patience. “No--I mean, yes, there is. But that’s not what I was talking about.”

“You were talking about nothing important,” Nebula says harshly. “Can we focus on the fact that we are obviously at the wrong coordinates?” 

“ _You_ were the one who put them in,” Peter mutters. 

“Because they were the ones Dey gave me!” Nebula growls. 

“You’re sure?” he asks, then glances down himself, using one practiced hand to flip through screens on the display in front of him. He’s checking Dey’s message against their navigation system, and a moment later he shakes his head and makes a noise of disgust. “Yeah okay, that is what he said. So get him on comms, Neb. Let’s find out what the hell he messed up.”

“You are equally capable of making a call to Dey,” says Nebula. “And do not call me that.”

“You put the coordinates in,” says Peter, apparently less keen on being in charge now than he was a few minutes ago when she’d been in the pilot’s seat. Then again, maybe it’s just about this stupid little power struggle between the two of them. “So you get to call him and tell him they’re wrong. Also, okay but we gotta work on the nickname thing. It’s totally required if you’re gonna be an official Guardian. So if not Neb, then what do you want? ‘Bula? La-La?’” 

“Peter,” Gamora laughs helplessly. He is being ridiculous, goading her sister, and she probably has no right to find it as absolutely delightful as she does. Especially not given the circumstances, yet here she is giggling like a child.

“Nah, she can’t have Peter as a nickname!” Peter says, grinning at her. “That’s already my name! What were you thinking, Mora? Ra-ra?”

That only makes her laugh harder. Gods, what is wrong with her? She can only imagine how Thanos would punish her for losing her composure like this. But then again, perhaps that’s the best part: that he no longer can. 

“You are insufferable,” Nebula says with a put-upon sigh. “Both of you. I will make the call to Dey if it will shut you up.”

“I’ll personally deliver a message to Dey myself if it would shut them up,” Rocket mumbles. 

Peter waits until the call is being pulled up on the holoscreen in front of all of them before saying, “Thanks Nebby!” He throws a wink at Gamora, and she stifles her laughter behind her hand. 

“I will murder you,” Nebula informs him, perfectly straight-faced. 

“Don’t murder anybody you don’t have to,” Dey says as the call goes through and his face appears in front of them. He only takes up part of the window, so they still have a perfectly good view of the definitely-not-a-ship in front of them. 

Before anybody else can speak, Drax says rather loudly, “You gave us faulty coordinates!” 

“What are you talking about?” Dey asks, brow furrowed. “I gave you Corman’s coordinates.” 

“You said he’d be on the Sons’ ship,” Rocket says. “And unless their ship grew about a ba-jillion times its size, we’re at a planet, not a stinkin’ ship.” 

Dey frowns, his expression troubled, like he’s trying to figure out whether they’re messing with him or being serious. Gamora can understand that suspicion. Peter _has_ just been messing with several of them in several different ways. He has a unique ability to inject levity into situations where she would never even consider it -- Not that she’s _ever_ really considered using humor before....at least not that she remembers.

“I said that I was giving you Corman’s coordinates,” Dey repeats finally. “From the tracker isotope we embedded under his skin prior to sending him into the field.”

Gamora feels an instinctive rush of horror at the idea of that. She hasn’t realized how it’s showing on her face but it must be, because Peter looks at her, shrugs, and mouths ‘told you this guy was nuts.’

“I also told you that while I expected him to be on the Sons’ ship, I couldn’t guarantee anything about the coordinates,” Dey continues. “In fact, I distinctly recall warning you all that I didn’t know what kind of danger you might be heading into.”

“You didn’t warn me of that,” says Drax. “The last time we talked was on Xandar.”

Dey sighs, rubbing his forehead with his hand; Gamora’s already seen this look on him several times, and has identified it as his _’dealing with Drax’_ expression. “Fine. I warned _some_ of you when I briefed you on this mission, and assumed the information would be passed down.” 

“Peter says assuming makes you an ass!” Mantis says cheerfully. 

Turns out Dey’s _’dealing with Mantis’_ expression is similar to the one he has for Drax. “The point is, if the coordinates took you there, then Corman must be on that planet. Maybe the Sons are there too, or he managed to escape and ended up there.”

“If he escaped, then why wouldn’t he have contacted you?” Peter asks. 

“I don’t know,” Dey says. “But I would love for you to find out.” His voice is harsher and more tired than Gamora ever remembers hearing it -- to be fair, she doesn’t have many memories of him, but from the surprise on the other Guardians’ faces, it is uncommon. It only takes Dey a second to recover, his shoulders sinking as he sighs. “Sorry, sorry, I just… We’re kind of worried about him. Corman’s one of our best. We expected to hear from him by now.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Peter assures him, much more serious than before. 

“We will find him,” Gamora says with conviction. 

“Eh, we’ll give it a shot,” Rocket says, shrugging a shoulder. 

“We cannot be sure whether we will find him,” says Drax. Then he pulls out his knives, brandishing them dramatically -- and dangerously. “But if we do not, I assure you he will be avenged!”

Dey sighs, the look that’s equal parts exasperation and desperation growing. “Just get down to that planet, okay? We’re wasting time right now and we don’t know how much of that Corman may have.”

“We’re on it,” says Peter, in that same tone. “We’ll keep you updated, okay? Talk to you soon.”

Dey nods, satisfied with that, and possibly also relieved to be ending this conversation and presumably getting them to move on into action. “Thank you. I have faith in you. At least twelve percent.”

That number sounds exceedingly low to Gamora, but it seems to be an inside joke judging by the way Peter grins in response. He gives Dey an exaggerated salute and then ends the call, having no qualms about operating the comms array now. 

Then he turns to the rest of the team. “Okay, Guardians. You heard the man. We’ve got a serious rescue to pull off here, so it’s time to put on our serious faces.”

“We already knew that,” says Drax, while Mantis pulls one of the more ridiculous faces Gamora has seen even from her.

Gamora pauses, though, struck by his use of the word Guardians. Struck by the way he’s applied it to her. Being a part of this team still feels new to her, though she knows that’s not the case for the rest of them, who have known her as part of the team for years. But she’s been so focused on Peter for the past few weeks, and the strange memories she’s been getting, that for a while she hasn’t stopped to consider that she once said she was only sticking around for a couple of jobs, that she was not one of them. 

She’s glad they didn’t hold her to her word there; immeasurably so. She loves being part of something good, and this team -- this _family_ \-- are undoubtedly good. So much better than what Thanos had tried to convince her a family was. And if a member of her team were missing and probably in danger, like Corman is right now, she would not rest until they were found.

“Let’s go,” she says firmly, looking back at Peter. 

He grins at her. “On it.” Then he’s flying them quickly towards the planet below them, which her display screen tells her is called Maliv. 

“Don’t fly right on top of the coordinates,” Nebula says, once they’ve broken the atmosphere and are rapidly descending. “We cannot just park on top of him.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Peter says defensively. “I’m not gonna crash us right into him.”

“I am Groot,” he says, without looking up. Gamora roughly translates it to, _’Don’t knock that strategy._ ’ Some of the attitude gets lost in translation, she’s sure. 

“Good point, bud,” Peter says. “That did save us before.” 

Drax frowns. “When was that? I don’t remember that.”

“I am Groot,” Groot says indignantly, calling Drax an idiot now without offering any more details or context to help. 

“Uh, when we saved their asses from the purple losers?” says Rocket, apparently more willing to elaborate, though his tone is just about identical to Groot’s. So maybe that’s where the kid gets it, then. On the other hand, many of them seem to share the same biting sarcasm at times. It could just as easily have come from Nebula.

“You did not run this ship into Thanos!” Drax protests, still not even close to the same page. He might be in a different book entirely, not that he would understand that metaphor. Gamora can’t help smiling a bit at that thought. He isn’t done, though. “You did run it into Thor, but I do not think that saved us!”

“ _The Sons_ , you imbecile!” growls Nebula. “You know, when they kidnapped us?”

“They did not kidnap me,” Drax points out unhelpfully. 

Gamora glances back at Peter to roll her eyes and finds him already looking at her, a little smile on his lips that seems reserved only for her. That realization sends a rush of warmth through her and she has to make a conscious effort to refocus on the job, clearing her throat. “So, this Corman person. What all do we know about him, since we are to be his rescuers?”

“Well, he’s a real wet blanket,” Peter says, still smiling at her until she finally brings herself to turn back around and look at the approaching planet in front of them; if she keeps looking at him, she’s going to get distracted again, and she needs to focus on this mission. 

“He is not a blanket of any kind,” Drax says, confusion in his voice. 

Peter sighs deeply. “It’s an expression, dude, I know you’ve heard me say it before. It means he’s no fun, he’s just serious all the time.” Gamora doesn’t say this, but she understands Drax’s confusion -- that term makes no sense. What does the moisture content of a blanket have to do with someone’s level of seriousness? 

“He is decent at his job,” Nebula supplies, which is pretty high praise from her.

“Have you.... _we_...worked with him before?” Gamora asks. 

“A few times,” Peter says, sounding petulant for some reason. It becomes clear when he continues, “And he never laughs at any of my jokes.”

“Maybe that’s because they’re not funny,” Rocket says. 

“I am hilarious,” Peter says loftily. “So therefore: he’s a wet blanket.” Gamora glances back at him again and he quickly adds, “Who we are going to help. Obviously.” 

“The Nova Corps like him because he has no life outside of his job,” Nebula scoffs, shaking her head.

Gamora feels those words like a punch to the gut, an unexpected thing to resonate with her in such a personal way, and yet she can’t deny it. She has spent years -- no, decades -- of her life with her only sense of identity wrapped up in being a Daughter of Thanos. For a time, her method of survival had been to thrive in that role, to let her natural sense of competition drive her. To let herself feel pleased by excelling in her training, by excelling in her missions. By excelling in becoming the monster that Thanos wanted her to become.

“Gamora?” Peter prompts gently, and she realizes abruptly that she’s gotten lost in her thoughts again, and that it’s probably showing on her face.

She clears her throat again, hard. “I -- do like your jokes.”

“Of course you do,” Rocket scoffs.

Peter grins, such a happy expression that she doesn’t even regret how ridiculous she must have sounded, saying that long after he’s brought up his jokes. “Because they’re the best jokes in the galaxy!”

“I am Groot,” Groot snarks. 

“He is not lame,” Gamora says quickly, before Peter can say what she’s pretty sure would have been the same thing. She gives Groot a stern look and his smirk fades, actually looking a little contrite. He sinks down in his chair, his posture getting even worse, but stays focused on his game. 

“Thank you,” Peter says, still smiling at her. She forces herself to turn around again. She has no idea where that came from: chiding Groot like that. It was more than a desire to defend Peter, though that was certainly part of it. No, it was more like an instinct to… _parent_ Groot. She hesitates to put that word to it, as she doesn’t think she has it in her to be a parent but...clearly she was. She knows that she filled that role for him, that he grieved her like a son when she was gone. And she does feel quite fond of him, even only knowing him -- remembering knowing him -- for about a month. 

“Focus,” Nebula says. Gamora nearly jumps and looks back at Nebula in surprise, only to realize that she was aiming that comment at everybody, not just her; she hasn’t suddenly developed the ability to read her thoughts. “We are approaching the coordinates.” 

“You mean we’re approaching the dock _near_ the coordinates!” Peter says brightly, and also more than a little smugly. “Because _someone_ told me that I can’t just land on top of Corman and squish him.”

Nebula rolls her eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh, gee thanks,” Peter retorts. “How ever did I function without you?”

He adjusts a few more controls, changing the angle of approach as they get closer. Gamora feels her stomach drop a bit at that, but it’s not that she doesn’t trust him -- He is by far the most skillful pilot she’s ever watched up close, she realizes. What she’s feeling now is mostly exhilaration -- and protectiveness at the knowledge that all of these people she loves are about to be heading into danger. 

“Poorly,” Nebula shoots back, which makes Drax laugh loudly. 

“Hey!” Peter protests, his eyes still on the controls as he brings them in for a landing in one of the docking bays that’s becoming increasingly visible through the port window. “How come you understand her sarcasm but not mine?”

Drax frowns. “What is sarcasm?”

“Are you kidding me?” Peter mutters. “I know you know what sarcasm is.” 

Gamora has to press her lips together to stifle laughter, reminding herself to focus on the job that they are rapidly approaching. Before they do, Nebula pulls up some information so that it appears on everyone’s holo screens in front of them. “It looks as though this is a port city. Heavily travelled.” 

“It looks like a piece of crap,” Rocket says harshly. From the pictures that come up on the holo, and what they can see out the window as they come closer, Gamora has to agree. Everything looks dark and run-down and dirty, all of the buildings appearing as though they could crumble at any moment. 

“It reminds me of Knowhere,” Mantis says, innocently, just making an observation, but the mention of that place causes something to seize in Gamora’s throat. 

She glances back at Peter, can’t help herself, and finds, yet again, that he’s already looking at her. She can see him swallow before he moves his gaze back to the window, though he seems to be trying to keep his expression neutral. She doubts Knowhere will ever not bring back that trauma for him. Now that she has the memory of what happened there, somehow, it is doing the same for her. 

“It looks nothing like a severed head,” Drax observes. 

Peter groans, which makes her realize that Peter’s ‘dealing with Drax’ face looks an awful lot like Dey’s, which is fitting when she thinks about it. They are both skilled leaders, she knows, though in very different contexts. And she has a feeling that Dey appreciates Peter’s jokes far more than he’s often willing to let on.

“There,” says Peter, as he sets the ship down smoothly in one of the docking berths and presses a few commands on the holo to register their spot, transferring units for the time and for fuel. Then he winces. “Might’ve been cheaper to land on top of some people and squish ‘em, though.”

“Hey,” says Rocket, “if you wanna outsmart the system, just say the word. I ain’t the sucker here.”

Peter sighs. “We’re here to be professionals, not criminals. Nevermind anyone else in this armpit of a system.”

“Tell us how you really feel,” Nebula scoffs.

“I _really_ feel like we should cut it out with the arguing and get off the ship so we can start finding Corman,” Peter retorts.

“Hey,” says Rocket. “Who says we can’t argue _and_ find this loser?”

“We often argue while completing jobs!” Mantis says cheerfully. 

“It does seem to happen a lot,” Gamora points out, but gives Peter a supportive smile as she does. He smiles back. 

“Okay,” he says, in what she’s come to recognize as his _time to be a leader_ voice. “So we should have a game plan before we -- guys, c’mon!” He throws his hands up when everybody starts to unbuckle and stand up, apparently having no plans to have a strategy meeting beforehand. 

“I am Groot,” Groot points out, who is standing but still playing his game. 

“I know I said to get off the ship,” Peter sighs. “But don’t act like you’re doing this to listen to me. I also said we need a plan! Some kind of plan. At least 12% of a plan.” 

There’s that number again. For some reason, Gamora has the urge to laugh at it, though she doesn’t know why. She stands, the last to do so besides Peter, and moves next to him so she can put a supportive hand on his shoulder. He smiles at her but shakes his head. 

“I have a plan,” Rocket argues. He’s strapping various explosives of different sizes to his belt and into his pockets. “My plan is to blow shit up.”

“My plan is to destroy the Sons of Thanos!” Drax declares, brandishing his knives. “And retrieve our fallen comrade!”

“We don’t know that he is fallen,” Gamora points out, hoping that in fact he isn’t. The others might not think Corman is the most fun person to hang out with, but he certainly appears to be an honorable agent of a good cause. She has no wish to see good people get hurt, especially at the hand of an organization trying to perpetuate Thanos’s legacy. “He might have just escaped.”

“He better be fallen,” says Rocket, strapping two more grenades to his belt and then nodding to himself. “Or else he better have some units on him to pay us for his pain in the ass ride home.” He heads for the ramp without another word, Groot following him.

“Guys!” Peter repeats, raising his voice a bit and holding up both hands. “Guys, come on, pause a second!”

Drax freezes for a single beat, then continues moving toward the exit as well. Nebula scoffs at that, then does her own exaggerated version, freezing in front of Peter and rolling her eyes at him before walking away.

“Fine!” Peter shouts. “Fine, just go rushing in with no teamwork or plan! That went so super well for us the last time we did it!”

“I will form a plan with you,” Mantis says earnestly, coming to stand by him and Gamora, as Peter finally stands as well. Gamora notes that her antennae are glowing, and wonders if she is sensing how Peter feels with her powers or just her intuition. She does remember her saying that she is unable to help feeling strong emotions sometimes. 

“Thanks, Mantis,” Peter says, sounding resigned. “But it won’t help if nobody else listens.” He looks at Gamora and there’s something so sad and anguished in his eyes; Gamora wishes briefly that she had Mantis’s power to sense what he’s feeling so she could help him. 

Not knowing what else to do, she reaches out and takes his hand in hers. “Let’s form a plan once we’ve gathered more information. I will _make_ the others listen.” 

That earns her a smile, though it’s a bit weak. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, squeezing her hand for a second. Then they walk out together, behind all the others, Mantis bouncing along in front of them. They are still holding hands. 

Gamora wrinkles her nose when they step outside the ship and onto the planet. “Do you think the entire planet smells this bad?” she asks Peter. “Or just this dock?”

He snorts. “The whole planet, probably. Piece of crap place.” 

She has to admit that she’d thought they were being prematurely judgmental when they’d first approached this system. She’s seen this group make plenty of harsh, snap judgments, after all. Hell, she’s made plenty of them herself. But as they step out of the docks and into the street, she has to agree with Rocket’s assessment of the Magoc system. ‘Dinky and crappy and full of criminals’ is _exactly_ how the street they step into appears to be. 

It’s not quite as...well, garish as Contraxia. There aren’t any neon lights or flashing signs, or at least none visible right now, in the middle of this planet’s day. There also aren’t any sex bots visible, which is a relief. But she’s forced to admit that the sensory overload of Contraxia was at least somewhat more palatable than the sour smell of rot that seems to pervade this entire place. She realizes why a few moments later: There’s an enormous garbage treatment plant a few hundred feet from the docks, belching thick brown smoke into the atmosphere from half a dozen large stacks. There are also piles and piles of refuse just sitting in the street in front of it, as if everyone on the entire planet brings their junk and dumps it there.

“I am Groot,” Groot says, actually lifting his eyes from his game in order to make a face of disgust. 

“Of course it smells worse than me,” Drax says matter-of-factly. “Many things smell worse than me. I emit the smell of a warrior!” 

“Is that what you’re calling it?” Peter mutters. 

Gamora would laugh if the smell weren’t making her vaguely nauseous. There are many times she curses her enhanced senses, and this is one of them. 

Nebula, ignoring all of this, says, “The coordinates are this way,” and begins leading them down the street away from the dock -- and also away from the garbage, thankfully. Not that the streets they are walking down now are much better. 

They set the Benatar down in the public dock, but the one next to it, that they pass on their way, appears to be for shipping and trading, of all manner of unsavory things, she’s sure. There are people -- most of them cursing and not smelling great themselves -- loading and unloading boxes from various cargo ships. 

“That’s not why we’re here,” Peter says to Rocket, who Gamora now notices is watching the boxes carefully, his fingers twitching. 

“Yeah, but we’re already here,” Rocket says, though he continues walking along with the rest of them, even as his eyes remain on the shipments. “Why not, you know, pick something up along the way?” 

“Dude,” says Peter, “you were literally just telling us how you’re not a criminal anymore.” 

“I said ‘hardly,’” says Rocket, which is technically true. “Not ‘none.’ And besides, I thought we’d established that stealing didn’t count.”

“No, we established that _murder_ doesn’t count,” says Drax, like Rocket is the dumbest being he’s ever encountered. “Stealing most certainly does.”

“We’re not here to steal anything or murder anyone,” says Peter, then seems to reconsider. “Except maybe some Sons of Thanos, if we happen to find their sorry asses.”

Gamora shakes her head, is about to turn and look at Peter again, but doesn’t get the chance. Something in one of the boxes has a particularly pungent smell to it, and they happen to pass right as a gust of wind sends the stench straight in their direction. She can’t help the noise of disgust she makes as it slams into her, half cough and half gag.

“Hey,” says Peter, taking the scarf from around his neck and holding it out, motioning for her to wrap it around her nose and mouth. “Here.”

She doesn’t question it, the smell so bad that she’s willing to try anything. She holds her breath as she takes the scarf and does what he’s indicated. While she can hold her breath for minutes at a time, it’s unpleasant, and she would much prefer to be able to breathe without gagging. 

To her intense relief, the next breath she takes through the scarf is more pleasant than the last. The bad smell is still there in the background, but it’s muted, and much stronger is the smell of _Peter_ that lingers on his scarf, a smell she enjoys very much. 

“Thank you,” she says, voice muffled. 

“Of course,” Peter says. He reaches over to delicately adjust the way the ends of the scarf are hanging, keeping them from getting tangled up in her hair. “That usually helps.” 

“ _Thank you_ ,” she says again, hoping her eyes reflect her gratitude. She’s beyond grateful that he already has a solution to this, one they’ve clearly used before. 

She glances at Nebula, who is leading the group still, and wonders if she has this same problem. She almost certainly does, since her senses are enhanced as well, but she’s not gagging. Gamora can’t be sure, since there are too many noises around for her to distinguish subtle sounds like breathing, but she’d bet Nebula is holding her breath; she can do so for a lot longer than Gamora can, and is a lot less willing to accept help for these things. 

"Ugh," Rocket starts, watching them. He's obviously about to make some more characteristic, choice comments about their relationship or their interactions or how they're even more disgusting than this planet.

He doesn't get the chance to elaborate, though. A moment later, Nebula stops in her position at the front of the group, which causes everyone else to pause -- except Drax, who runs into her and earns himself an impressive glare. 

Gamora looks around for the reason Nebula stopped, and it becomes apparent quickly; one of the people on the side of the road is now approaching them, and he's yelling Rocket's name in a tone that is definitely not friendly. 

"Rocket!" he calls, slurring his words a bit, his gait stooped and shuffling. "Hey Rocket, where's the big scary tree?" 

He's an older Aakon man, Gamora can see now that he's come close enough to distinguish his face through all the filth that's covering it. He looks decidedly worse for wear, and intoxicated on top of that. Probably on more than one substance. 

"I am Groot!" says Groot, baring his teeth in his best attempt to be threatening. 

The old man looks up at him, then bursts into laughter. 

“He is very strong!” Mantis says angrily, her hands curled into fists. The man looks at her and laughs even harder, practically doubling over on himself. 

Gamora already has her sword drawn, though the man doesn’t appear to be much of a threat, even though he probably would like to be. He can hardly even walk straight. But still, she’s not about to underestimate someone and leave her team in danger. Nobody else really seems to view him as a threat either, although Groot is definitely bristling at being laughed at, and Drax has his knives out. It doesn’t take much for Drax to consider fighting someone, though. 

Peter moves to stand a little in front of the group and Gamora hurries to stand with him; she is _certainly_ not going to underestimate anybody who might pose a threat to him. 

“Do you know this guy?” Peter asks Rocket, who’s squinting at the man as he continues laughing, trying to see his face. His eyes widen and then he starts laughing too, though not for nearly as long. 

“Oh, yeah!” he says. “I got a bounty on him years ago, found him all the way on Arcturus IV.” 

“Tha’s right!” the man shouts, his mirth dissolving as he apparently remembers why he was angry in the first place. “I spent five years in jail cuz o’ you!” 

“And I got 7,000 units because of you!” Rocket says, laughing gleefully. He even points at him, just to be an asshole, Gamora is pretty sure. 

She glances back and forth between the two of them. She instinctively wants to side with Rocket here -- because she knows him, because he is a member of her family, because he is a Guardian. But then again, she also knows what an absolute dick he can be. And she knows that he has an unsavory past, just like they all do. Hell, there are plenty of people _she_ could meet on a random planet who would be absolutely justified in being angry with her. 

“What was the bounty for?” she asks Rocket, speaking through the scarf, her sword still drawn and at the ready. The man has paused a few feet away, still looking angry, though appropriately concerned about how thoroughly outnumbered he is. That seems to be deterring him, at least for the moment.

“Uhh…” Rocket looks lost, scratching his head as he searches his memory. Clearly it was a _while_ back, and she knows Rocket’s been through a hell of a lot even in just the past five years that the rest of his team was...well, indisposed. But then he starts to laugh again, slapping his leg hysterically. “Oh, that’s right! He was runnin’ a whore house on Xandar! Dumbest thing I ever saw. Coulda done it on Contraxia no problem, but he picked Xandar where it was illegal! Kinda my first job for the Nova Corps, technically speaking.”

“I was providin’ a service!” the man yells, hands curled into fists. Apparently however many years it’s been have not been enough for him to get over this....the alcohol probably doesn’t help. 

“Yes, well, this has been a lovely reunion,” Peter says hurriedly. He puts a hand on his hip, moving his jacket to the side in the process to make sure the man can see his blaster. “But we’ve got places to be, so you two will have to catch up more another time.” 

“If he desires a fight, he can have a fight!” Drax yells, holding his knives up. 

“Drax, no, oh my god --” Peter starts, but the man interrupts him with a drunken yell of rage. 

“I can take you!” he exclaims, stumbling towards them. “Especially that dumb tree!” 

Gamora takes a quick step to get in front of Peter, even holding her arm out to keep him back. Groot looks like he’s about to grow his vines and grab the guy, Peter’s got his hand on his blaster, but then, lightning quick, Rocket’s grabbed a small bomb from his belt and lobbed it at the approaching man. In a puff of a smoke and a small _’boom’_ , the man is suddenly lying on the ground, unconscious. 

Gamora panics for a second, thinking Rocket’s killed him, which is more than unnecessary, but then the man lets out an obnoxious snore and she realizes he’s just knocked out. 

“Rocket,” Peter sighs. “He wasn’t actually a threat.” 

“I know!” Rocket says defensively. “That’s why I only knocked him out! Yeesh. I coulda easily killed him but I didn’t because see: not a criminal anymore.”

“That’s lovely,” Nebula drawls. She’s been standing, watching this all with varying degrees of amusement, but now she looks decidedly bored. “But you did still knock someone out in the middle of the street, so perhaps we should move on quickly.” 

“What’re they gonna do?” asks Rocket. “Arrest me? Whole place is a planet full’a criminals!” 

He’s doing absolutely nothing to modulate his voice, and Gamora feels the tension starting to grow in the pit of her stomach again. True, the Aakon man didn’t seem to pose any real threat and true, Rocket probably overreacted. But she really does _not_ want him doing anything to invite an attack on her team. Especially Peter. And her sister. And Groot, and...well, okay, all of them. Any of them. 

“Rocket,” she says warningly.

He’s not done, though, having noticed a few onlookers starting to abandon their undoubtedly sketchy trade deals to stare instead. One man has a knife on his hip that Gamora can spot, another has a blaster that appears to be of dubious functionality given all the rust on it.

“Hey!” Rocket yells at them, even louder than before. “Hey, what’re you freaks lookin’ at? Better not be at me!” He pulls another small grenade from his belt and holds it up. “I got plenty o’ these! Anyone who wants to stare can have what that loser just got!”

Gamora opens her mouth to shush him again, but she doesn’t get the chance. The next thing she knows, he’s snarling and struggling -- and hanging several feet in the air, because Nebula’s scooped him up by the scruff of his neck.

“Hey!” he shouts, sounding even angrier at her than he did at the bystanders. “Put me down, baldy!” He kicks up at her arm but she ignores him, carrying him along with her as she begins walking again, the way they were headed before this interruption. 

The others all follow, although Drax casts a few longing glances back at the potential violence before sheathing his knives again. Gamora keeps her sword out, deciding she is not going to put it away for the entirety of this mission; while that man was not a threat, any of the others watching them could have been, and she’s sure this planet doesn’t have the reputation it does for no reason. 

Groot is still seething, presumably still at the insult, but he does smile a bit at Rocket being carried. 

“We are here on a mission,” Nebula tells him, sounding very much like she’s lecturing him. “Not for you to act like a buffoon.” 

“Who you callin’ a buffoon?” he yells. 

“You, obviously,” Nebula says, unaffected by the angry, bomb-wielding creature she’s holding. “If I put you down, are you going to stop attempting to jeopardize our mission?” 

“I’m going to murder you,” Rocket informs her. 

“Fine,” Nebula says, and for some reason puts him down, though that didn’t sound very much like agreement to Gamora. But Rocket doesn’t attempt bodily harm once he’s free, though he does glare up at Nebula with his hands curled into fists. 

“Rocket must really like your sister,” Peter whispers, sounding awed. “He’d have bitten off anyone else’s hand if they tried something like that. Except Groot.” 

Five years spent together as the sole survivors of their family will do that to people, Gamora thinks. 

“I still might,” Rocket sneers, apparently having heard Peter. 

“Only if you want to break off all your teeth biting into metal,” says Nebula, smirking. She flexes her prosthetic hand at him, practically an invitation. 

“That would be hilarious!” Drax booms unhelpfully. 

“I am Groot,” says Groot, sounding genuinely concerned about the possibility of Rocket hurting himself.

Rocket rolls his eyes, but he does turn all of his attention toward Groot. “I know, I know. I ain’t an idiot, you know.”

“I am Groot,” he repeats in a much ruder tone, then sticks his tongue out and blows a raspberry at Rocket.

“Guys,” Peter groans. “Guys, come on. Did any of you hear what Nebula just said about being on a mission? Not acting like buffoons?”

“I didn’t,” says Drax. “I was thinking about how much farther we have to walk to these coordinates.”

Peter looks like he wants to scream, but instead he runs a hand through his hair, which makes it stick out crazily as though he might be the one who just got hit by a grenade. Gamora rests a hand on his arm, and he turns to offer her a very weak smile.

“Do not agree with me, Quill,” says Nebula, rolling her eyes. But then she stops, indicating a building at the spot where the street they’re on dead-ends. “And we don’t have to walk much farther, because the coordinates are inside there.”

“What is it?” Mantis asks, standing on her toes and craning her neck as if she’s trying to get a better view of a show. 

“I don’t know,” Nebula says, like that should be obvious. “We’ll have to get closer to see.”

She’s right; Gamora has been trying to figure it out from here, but she can’t see enough. All she can tell is that it sits at the end of the long street, and that there’s nothing remarkable about it compared to the rest of the buildings on the street. It’s roughly the same height, though perhaps a bit wider. 

If the air on this planet weren’t so dirty that it actually affects their ability to see ahead of them, then she’d be able to tell more. But as it is, they’re going to need to get closer. 

“It does not look like a ship,” Drax says, voice laced with confusion. 

Peter makes a small, frustrated noise. “It would probably be dumb of me to ask if you remember Dey telling us it wasn’t necessarily gonna be a ship?”

“What?” Drax asks, even more confused. 

Peter shakes his head. “Nevermind.” 

Gamora points to a spot a little farther up the street that she _can_ see clearly enough. It’s a small spot between buildings where one casts a shadow that should allow them to be relatively inconspicuous as they try to scope out the place, although she probably doesn’t need to be all that worried about that, considering all the shady things that happen in plain sight around here. They passed at least three drug deals just on the last street alone. “Let’s head there to get a closer look.” 

“Let’s just go ransack the place ‘til we find Corman already!” Rocket says impatiently. 

“Guys!” Peter says forcefully. “Professionals! _Please!_ ”

Rocket completely ignores him, though, taking off at a run toward the building, Groot and Mantis following without question. 

“I am a professional Destroyer!” Drax yells, then bellows a wordless battle cry as he runs after them, nearly trampling Rocket and Groot, who are both slower than he is with his longer stride. 

“Idiots,” Nebula growls, and stalks after them at a much slower pace.

Gamora starts to follow her sister, but finds herself stilled by one of Peter’s hands on her wrist, not exactly holding her in place but an urgent touch nonetheless. When she turns to look at him again, she finds a look of near panic on his face, closer to the surface than it was before.

“What is it?” she asks, ignoring the others. Surely their foolishness is not that new to him, not alarming enough to warrant this sort of reaction. 

He shakes his head, bites his lip, then sighs. “I just -- I -- Do you remember what happened just before we found Thanos on Knowhere?”

She’s about to say no, because she didn’t before -- Only had the memories of him holding her by the neck, of Peter’s blaster trained on her and the anguished look on his face. But now she has a sudden flash of it -- of dark and cold and trepidation. Of the others loud and rushing, of Peter’s urgent voice and _the hand means stop._ Of the way that she couldn’t stop, because if she had, that might have meant he was the one going straight into danger first.

“Yes,” she says quietly, a lump in her throat at both the memory and the look on his face right now that’s telling her he’s fearing the same thing is going to happen again here; that they’re all rushing into danger despite his efforts to keep them safe; that _she_ is rushing into danger and he’ll be powerless to save her. “This is not Knowhere, Peter.” 

“It could be another one,” he says desperately. “The last time we faced these bastards…” 

“I know,” she says softly, because it’s not like she’s forgotten the things that happened to both of them. 

“I don’t want you getting hurt again,” he says, the helpless look on his face making her want to promise that she’ll never get hurt, that she’ll never be in danger ever again; but she can’t lie to him. 

“And I don’t want you to get hurt either,” she says. “We will protect each other, okay?” 

“I can’t lose you again,” he whispers. There’s water in his eyes that he seems to be trying his best to hold in. 

“Hey,” she says, wriggling her wrist free from his grasp only to hold his hand instead. “I’m going to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m not gonna rush into anything here. We’ll go together.”

He takes a deep breath, seems to gather himself, and nods. “Right. Okay. Just--please, don’t try to take them on all by yourself.” 

“As long as you do not do the same,” she says, privately thinking that she would if it meant saving him. He’s probably thinking the same thing, she realizes, which only strengthens her resolve to prevent him from doing so, even if it means taking risks herself.

He nods, though, so at least they don’t have to keep arguing about it aloud. Instead, they turn in unison back toward the building. The others haven’t vanished inside of it yet, which gives Gamora a sense of equal parts relief and foreboding. On the one hand, they haven’t gone rushing in on their own. On the other, that’s because the door is locked -- which probably isn’t a great sign as far as this being some sort of friendly establishment. Then again, perhaps a friendly establishment would need some protection on a planet like this.

She glances sideways at Peter, and wordlessly they close the distance between themselves and the others. The place looks like a big solid block, no windows and just the one door, without any sign of a handle or comm link on the outside of it. Nebula is scanning it with her holo, while Drax attempts to stab it ineffectually with his knives. Groot has a vine trying to jam it open, but that’s not working either. 

“Everybody get back!” Rocket yells, just as Gamora’s gotten close enough to examine it for herself. He doesn’t give anyone the chance to protest, waiting only long enough for Groot to retract his vine before throwing a grenade at the door.

“Rocket!” Peter admonishes, throwing his arm frantically in front of Gamora to push her back from it, though she’s already retreated, pulling Mantis with her as well. She’s prepared to push them all to the ground if she needs to in order to protect them from Rocket’s reckless move, but it turns out there’s no need to. She’s not sure if it’s a feature of the grenade or something about the protection on this building, but the explosion is extremely small, almost self-contained. It does nothing to the door at all, and succeeds only in making noise. 

“Relax,” Rocket says, as if they are the crazy ones for being concerned. “I wasn’t gonna do nothin’ that bad. I know what I’m doing!”

“And yet,” Nebula drawls, “the door remains closed.” 

“What does your scan show?” Gamora asks, peering over at her holo. 

“Only that it is protected against such things,” Nebula says, glaring at Rocket. “Both scans and petty weapons like grenades.” She moves her glare to Drax, still attempting to attack the building. He is going to damage his knives if he keeps it up, Gamora thinks. “And knives.” 

“Then how are we going to get inside?” Mantis ponders. 

Peter sighs. “Did you guys even try knocking before you resorted to trying to fight your way inside?” At all of their blank stares, he rolls his eyes and strolls up to the door. Gamora stands close to him, wary, as he lifts his fist and knocks. 

“There’s no way it’ll be as easy as--” Nebula begins, but she’s interrupted by the door swinging open. 

The man who steps out and nearly runs straight into Drax -- who still has his knives raised fruitlessly -- looks much the same as the other inhabitants of this planet that they've seen so far. He's Krylorian, Gamora is pretty sure, although it's a bit hard to tell because his skin has been weathered by rough elements and rougher living so that it's dark red rather than the gentler pinks she's accustomed to. He appears to be wearing some sort of uniform, which would differentiate him from others, except that it's so tattered and dirty it's almost unrecognizable. And the stench of stale smoke emanating off of him is strong enough that she can detect it even through Peter's scarf, which makes her even more grateful to have it. 

Still, he is clearly not one of the Sons and that is a relief, no matter what else might be unpleasant about him. Then again, she would very much like to see all of the Sons dead, and she can't exactly achieve that if they never meet again. 

"State yer business," the Krylorian barks, glaring at each of them in turn. 

"We are looking for the Sons of Thanos," says Drax. "We are here to destroy them!"

“The wha’?” he says, the look of anger on his face now mixed with confusion. 

“The Sons of Thanos,” Rocket says, enunciating each word slowly, as if he’s speaking to an idiot. Which, to be fair, he probably is, but Gamora tenses anyway in case the man takes offense. 

He still only appears confused, though, and irritated. “Ain’t never heard of Thanos havin’ no sons.” 

Peter sighs. “They just call themselves that,” he says wearily. 

“We were told that they would be here,” Nebula says, rather aggressively. 

_That_ tone the man does seem to take offense to, because he glares rather stronger at her. “Well, they _ain’t_. So look somewhere else.” 

He takes a step back and grabs hold of the door as if he’s going to close it. With that movement, he unblocks the doorway enough for Gamora to see in past him and catch sight of what looks like cells, and others in uniforms like his outside them. 

“It’s a prison,” she whispers to Peter. 

“It’s a prison?” Mantis, who was standing right behind them, repeats loudly. 

The man -- who Gamora now believes to be a prison guard -- stops in the process of closing the door. “You didn’ even know what this place is?” he asks. He then proceeds to burst into drunken laughter. 

“We know it sucks!” Rocket says belligerently, never one to take kindly to being made fun of. Gamora has another sudden flash of memory at that: Rocket and Drax facing off in a bar, both of them drunk, both of them hurting and violent. 

“Rocket,” Peter sighs, shaking his head.

Fortunately, the guard doesn’t seem to take offense at Rocket’s insult. Instead he throws his head back and laughs so hard that for a moment it looks as though he might knock himself over, a toxic cloud of stinky breath emanating from him. “Well o’ course it sucks! Look where we are! Everything on this planet sucks!”

“I don’t think _you_ suck,” says Peter, in his very best hustling tone. It’s clear, Gamora realizes, that he thinks this man is a potential ally, or at least a resource they can use. “I think you can help us.”

The guard frowns, looking confused. “How’s that?”

“Well,” says Peter, “the Sons of Thanos might not be here, but we’re pretty sure our friend is. Maybe you can help us find him?”

“Who’s your friend?” he asks, crossing his arms. Gamora suspects he isn’t going to be particularly helpful, either because he doesn’t want to be or because he’s incapable. But she admires Peter for trying. 

“Corman Ridley!” Drax yells. He still has his knives out. 

“He is one of the Nova Corps’ best officers!” Mantis supplies eagerly. 

Peter turns to her quickly and hisses, “Cool it with that,” but it’s too late: The guard’s face transforms quickly from confusion and mild irritation back to outright anger, much angrier than they’ve seen on him thus far. 

“You’re friends with that Nova scum?” he yells. 

“Did I say friend?” Peter says, trying to quickly backtrack. “I meant--”

He’s unable to finish with whatever he was going to make up, because the guard is already pulling out a blaster. Gamora’s got her sword out ready to attack, Peter’s got a hand on his own blaster, Nebula has her batons too -- but once again, Rocket is the fastest. Before she can blink, there’s another ‘boom’ and a puff of smoke like the one that had appeared when Rocket stunned the Aakon man, and the guard is lying unconscious behind it. Already, Gamora can hear yells and footfalls from inside the prison, presumably the other guards coming to investigate. 

“Let’s go!” Peter says urgently. “We gotta regroup.” 

“I can take them!” Drax yells, but Nebula grabs him by the arm, Mantis taking his other, and they all get out of there as fast as they can.


	28. Chapter 28

There are guards pouring out the door of the prison, Peter is pretty sure. He’s judging entirely by the sounds coming from behind them, because at the moment he’s mostly focused on running without tripping over Rocket or Groot. But he can hear the sounds of footfalls and cursing, then what he can only assume is mean-spirited laughter.

“Slow down!” Mantis calls, followed by Nebula cursing at her. 

Peter continues running for about two more seconds, then stops abruptly when Gamora touches his arm and says his name in that familiar urgent tone of hers. He rocks forward on his feet with the change in momentum, but manages to catch himself without stumbling too badly. Mantis, on the other hand, is struggling to drag Drax, who’s now unconscious. Nebula no longer has his other arm, though it’s unclear how that happened. For a second he worries that Drax somehow got hit by blaster fire or something, but then he sees that Mantis’s antennae are glowing. So she must have put him to sleep, presumably to stop him from struggling, and now his dead weight is making it difficult for them to escape quickly. 

On the other hand, the guards don’t appear to be pursuing them as he’d worried. Instead, a small crowd of them has gathered around the one that Rocket stunned, jeering and kicking at his unconscious body, because of course that’s the kind of professionals they are.

Still, he doesn’t exactly want to wait around for them to realize the reasons their colleague is unconscious are still within shooting range, so he hurries back towards Mantis. Nebula is already slinging Drax’s other arm around her shoulders, though. 

“This fucking moron,” she growls as she does so. “Mantis had to knock him out so he wouldn’t try to stay and take them all on.” 

“Berate him later,” Gamora says urgently. “Let’s get out of here.” 

With Nebula’s help, Mantis is able to move a lot quicker, so they continue down the street and are rounding the corner before the guards seem to notice. 

“Wow,” Rocket says, slowing and shaking his head. “They’re even dumber than I’d have thought.” 

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “But let’s not risk them coming after us. We gotta find somewhere to hide and regroup.”

“The ship?” Mantis suggests. 

“We don’t want to lead them back there if they do follow us,” Gamora says, which is exactly what Peter was about to say. He takes a brief second to smile at her, and she smiles back, though she looks kind of confused about why he’s smiling at her like a dope in the middle of an escape. She’ll get used to that again, Peter figures. 

He does shake himself out of it, though, so he can be the damn leader. “Come on, we’ll find a place,” he says, and ushers them down this street so they can get farther away. 

“Well,” says Nebula, “we’re currently headed back the way we came. So if that is _not_ our goal, we will need to adjust our course.” They’re still moving, but very slowly. 

“Oh, that is very smart,” says Mantis, still breathing a bit harder than usual as she moves Drax’s bulk. For all her incredible strength in her powers, Peter knows that she’s physically weaker than he is. He is _not_ gonna start thinking about how that’s a relief to him sometimes, to his pride. 

“I am Groot,” says Groot, in that characteristic rude teen tone of his.

“Hey!” says Peter, about to protest that his intelligence has never been in question here. He’s the captain, damn it. He’s --

He doesn’t get the chance to say anything, though, because the next thing he knows, a big glob of something goes sailing past his head. He just barely manages to duck in time, which sends the thing flying straight into Drax’s unconscious face. Fortunately it’s not a traditional sort of weapon, he sees as he turns around to check, but rather some kind of rotten vegetable; a very pungent one that makes him glad he already gave Gamora his scarf.

“What the hell?” he mutters, looking in the direction the gross projectile came from. He groans when he sees exactly where it originated: standing on the other side of the street is the Aakon man Rocket had knocked unconscious earlier. Apparently those grenades aren’t very long-lasting. 

“Ya rotten scum!” The man yells at them -- and that’s the nicest among the insults he hurls. Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to be eager to approach them, probably not wanting a repeat of what happened last time, but still, it’s just one more thing. 

“Rocket, no,” Nebula says firmly, and Peter turns to see that he’s reaching for another one of those grenades. 

“C’mon, he’s totally better off knocked out!” he protests. 

“We do not want to create an explosion that the guards could hear,” Gamora points out, because she’s a genius, and Rocket is an idiot. 

“C’mon, let’s head this way,” Peter says quickly, ushering them towards an alley between buildings to their side, away from the crazy, shouting Aakon man and the prison. 

“None of you are any fun,” Rocket grumbles, but follows. After crossing the short alley, they end up on another street that’s somehow even shadier than the one they came from, but that serves Peter’s purposes well. 

Down at the end of this street, he spots a run-down building (not that that’s a surprise in this place), from which loud, crappy music is emanating. Peter can practically smell the alcohol from here. 

He glances at Gamora, who makes a face of disgust. He can’t see her mouth or most of her nose behind the scarf, but he can tell that she’s crinkling it in that expression she refuses to acknowledge as totally adorable. She clearly smells the alcohol too, probably even more intensely than he does, and finds it unpleasant. She nods, though, agreeing with the strategic benefit. 

Peter grins back at her, feeling that surge of warmth, of being a team again. Then he points to the building and hopes against hope that the others are more inclined to follow him than they have been for most of the day. “In there! It’s a bar!”

“Looks like a shit hole,” says Rocket, but he takes off in that direction anyway, the others falling in line.

Rocket’s assessment turns out to be basically right. The bar is dark and loud, a mix of shouted conversations and the kind of music that makes him wish for the good music of his childhood. It’s also packed, a crush of bodies from wall to wall that they have to struggle their way into. It’s ideal as a hideout, he thinks, though it _sucks_ to be in right now. As they squeeze their way through in search of somewhere, anywhere, that they can stand and talk about their next steps, Gamora finds his hand and squeezes it hard.

“Are you okay?” he asks, having to put his face rather close to hers to be heard over the sounds of the bar. 

She nods, but judging from her eyes, she’s overwhelmed. This is a lot for her to take in all at once; all the noises, all the smells, all the people and hazy clouds of smoke surrounding them. Peter would normally not want to drag her into a place like this, knowing how sensitive her hearing and sense of smell are, but it’s really the perfect place to hide out for a bit. They’re virtually hidden in plain sight, surrounded by a huge crowd of people that it would be difficult to pick anyone out of. 

This bar also has the advantage of being the kind of place where no one bats an eye when you drag an unconscious man inside and prop him up on a chair, which Mantis and Nebula are doing right now. 

They’ve managed to find a small table near the back of the bar. It’s only got the two chairs, and Rocket is standing on the other one, since the table is so tall he wouldn’t be able to see over it otherwise. The table is only meant for two people, but they all attempt to crowd around it anyway. 

Peter feels an odd, out of place pang as he watches Groot squeeze himself between Nebula and Mantis. He remembers when Groot was small enough to stand on top of a table like this and still not be eye-level with them, when that’s exactly what he would have done in a situation like this. 

“We won’t stay too long,” he says, close to Gamora’s ear. He hopes, at least. This place is overwhelming even for him, and he’s seen plenty like it in his time with the Ravagers. He hesitates for a beat, then shifts to rest a hand against her back, his arm half wrapped around her. He doesn’t want to put more than that on her right now, doesn’t want to make her uncomfortable, but he also knows that she tends to do better in situations like this when she’s able to ground herself. 

“I’m fine,” says Gamora, which is exactly what he expected her to say. 

“Okay,” says Peter, turning back to the group. “So, clearly the authorities on this planet are no friends of our friends.” He means the Nova Corps, of course, but he’s not about to say that when they’re in any sort of public place. Even one that’s full of smoke and so much unnecessary blaring bass that he can feel it in his bones.

When he looks at the others, though, Nebula and Gamora appear to be the only ones following. Drax is still unconscious, Groot’s gone back to his game, and Rocket looks confused.

Mantis just looks saddened. “They do not like our friends? That’s not very nice.”

Peter sighs, tilting his head back and attempting to gather his patience; at least Mantis isn’t dense on purpose. 

“He means Corman,” Gamora whispers. 

“Why didn’t he just say that then?” Rocket grumbles. 

“Because we are trying _not_ to announce our association with him to the entire bar,” Nebula hisses. 

“These dunces don’t know his name,” Rocket says, waving his hand around. Peter thinks that’s probably true, but still; they should know how to follow along with a code by now. 

“My point,” Peter says, before Nebula can carry on the bickering, “is that we’re going to need to be sneaky to get Corman out of there.” 

“Really?” Rocket says sardonically. “We’re not just gonna try strolling up and asking again?” 

“I don’t see you coming up with a solution,” Peter says a little impatiently. 

“I always solve everything,” Rocket says, with an epic roll of his eyes. “Maybe I want one of you morons to come up with a solution for once.”

Gamora raises an eyebrow. “What was the last thing you solved exactly?” she asks through the scarf. 

“Uh, hello, I knocked out both the guard and that drunk asshole,” he points out. 

“I am Groot,” he says without looking up. 

“So what if it’s a temporary solution?” Rocket asks. “Still a solution. It got us outta there.” 

“If you would like to stop arguing,” Nebula drawls. “I have something that might help.” At some point without Peter noticing, she’s gotten a holo out, and she’s flipping it around to show them an aerial view of the prison, with a little audio indicator in the corner. 

“What is _that_?” Mantis asks, wide-eyed, not following what’s happening here at all. Peter resists the urge to sigh yet again -- For all that Mantis can be incredibly perceptive and wise at times, the things that go directly over her head astound him at others. 

“It’s where we just were,” says Peter, still trying to keep this somewhat on the down low. 

“Oh!” says Mantis. “The prison! I recognize it now!”

Peter shushes her quickly, scrubbing his hands over his face and then back through his hair. He wonders whether his crew has always been this fragmented and frustrating, whether it’s just getting to him right now because he has so many emotions so close to the surface, his nerves still so very frayed.

“You hacked it?” asks Gamora, keeping her voice quiet. She sounds impressed, though.

Nebula nods. “While the rest of you were being useless.”

“Oh, good job,” Rocket says sourly. “Took you five whole minutes. I coulda done it in two.”

“Perhaps,” says Gamora, glaring at him, obviously feeling protective of her sister. “But you didn’t. Nebula did.”

“Bully for her,” he mutters, glaring. 

“It’s the audio from the comm system they use,” Nebula explains. “Either they have no security cameras or they’re better protected than their sorry excuse for communication devices.” 

“I am Groot?” he mumbles, his voice that mix of sarcastic and curiosity that means he actually wants to know the answer but doesn’t want to appear to actually care. His question basically amounts to _What good is that gonna do?_

“It’s not like they’re gonna describe the layout of the building for us,” Rocket says, still bitter. 

“No, but they might say something useful,” Gamora says. Peter’s not sure how much of Groot she can understand, but she can definitely understand way more than she could when she first returned to them. “Perhaps we can at least find out if that guard returned to consciousness, and if he’s always going to be the one answering the door.” 

Rocket wipes his paws over his face, as if _he’s_ the one who has to deal with difficult people. “None of that will matter if we just blow a hole in the damn wall, grab Corman, and get out.” 

“And risk blowing up people inside?” Peter points out. “Like you said, it’s not like they’re gonna describe the layout for us. We could end up hurting someone.” 

“We also don’t know how many guards there are,” Gamora says. “Or how well-armed.” 

“Maybe I wanna hurt someone,” says Rocket, his tough-guy facade apparently still going strong. “Maybe I wanna hurt Corman for sending us on this stupid job to this stupid trash planet.”

“Rocket is feeling hurt and sad because our friend is in danger,” says Mantis. “Also, he is feeling the need to overcompensate for the fact that he ran into an old enemy who reminded him that he used to be a criminal.”

That’s about the smartest thing any of them -- except Gamora, of course, because she’s a genius -- has said tonight, and all Peter can do is gape at her in surprise. 

“I am not!” Rocket protests. “I just don’t like the smell o’ garbage, unlike the rest of you morons, apparently. And I don’t care how many guards there are or what weapons they got, they ain’t no match for me!”

“Rocket--” Nebula begins, but she doesn’t get a chance to finish whatever thought or admonition that was going to be. 

Peter’s somehow managed to forget about Drax until just now, probably because it’s been such a relief to have him quiet instead of interrupting with his infuriatingly obtuse comments. But now he grunts a couple of times and then springs up unsteadily, knocking the chair out from under himself backward and bellowing a war cry like he’s still about to face off against the guards.

Gamora and Nebula both rush to catch him by the shoulders before he goes the way of his chair, and they manage to catch him before he can topple backwards. 

“Calm down,” Peter says urgently, as Drax looks around in confusion, fists up in a way that would be comical if they weren’t trying to keep a low profile. “We’re safe, dude, we’re in a bar, we’re not fighting anything.” 

Then he turns to the people at the table behind them, whose binge-drinking was interrupted by Drax’s chair clattering; they look annoyed by this, so Peter holds his hands up in his classic _’diffuse the situation’_ gesture. “Sorry about that. My friend had a little too much to drink.”

One of them grunts, and they both turn back to the giant glasses of near-black, bubbling liquid they’re consuming. Peter quickly picks up the chair and replaces it back behind Drax. 

“Where are we?” Drax demands. “How did we get here?”

“In a bar, moron,” Rocket says, reaching over the table to flick his forehead. Drax bats at his paw in irritation. “We had to knock your dumb ass out so we could get away from there.”

“I could have taken them,” Drax says angrily. 

“You could not have,” Mantis says with her classic, simple confidence. 

“But we are trying to figure out how we can,” Gamora says. Rocket opens his mouth and she shoots him a look. “ _Without_ just blowing a hole in the side of the building.” 

“I got an idea!” says Rocket, continuing to wave his paw in front of Drax for a moment and then running away to the other side of the table. 

Drax sits down again heavily, nearly missing the chair. He’s definitely moving like he’s drunk, though for once he isn’t. 

Peter eyes Rocket, still trying to keep himself calm, trying to prevent himself from getting too frustrated. He knows it won’t help anyone if he does, and yet…

“Serious ideas only,” he tells Rocket, catching and holding his gaze.

“Oh, it’s very serious,” Rocket promises solemnly.

“Fine,” says Peter. “So let’s hear it.”

“We blow a hole in the _roof_ o’ the building!” says Rocket, and then proceeds to laugh so hard that he nearly falls over. Mantis and Groot laugh too and then Drax joins in, guffawing and slapping his thigh, loud enough that he’s starting to draw looks from the table behind them again.

Peter runs his fingers through his hair and narrowly resists the urge to tear fistfuls of it out. He also shoots an apologetic look at Gamora. “They’re not always like this, I swear.”

“Yeah, they are,” says Nebula, then shakes her head and sighs. “But they’re...you know, family or something.”

“We are also a team, aren’t we?” Gamora asks, something fierce in her tone. 

“The best team!” Mantis says enthusiastically. She even claps her hands together for extra emphasis. 

“Then we should listen to Peter,” Gamora continues, glaring at everyone around the table in turn, except for him. “And focus on how we are going to rescue our friend. Who knows how much he’s suffering in that place, and we’re standing here delaying his rescue.” 

A brief silence falls over the table. Peter stares at Gamora in awe, willing himself not to cry because he’s so damn touched. She’s stood up for him plenty before, but it feels extra special right now. She meets his gaze, the fire of her own certainty that she’s doing what’s right blazing in her eyes, and he falls in love with her all over again, for the billionth time since they’ve met. 

“Yeesh,” Rocket mutters, after everyone’s sat in uncomfortable silence for a few seconds. Even Drax looks a little contrite. A little. “I was just messin’ around, no need to act like the entire universe is at stake.” 

“I am very sorry!” Mantis says, her antennae wilted so far Peter’s surprised they haven’t reached her toes. “We must work to rescue Corman as fast as possible!”

“I am Groot,” he points out; _We still don’t know how_.

“We really just need one person in there,” Peter says. He might be making his voice the slightest bit deeper, but it’s totally unintentional; it’s just his Leader Voice, that’s all. He looks to Gamora again for a little confidence booster and she smiles at him gently. 

“And how are we gonna manage that?” Nebula asks. 

“I have an actual idea about that,” he says, and waits to make sure everyone is actually paying attention -- aside from Groot, who’s still playing his game, but that doesn’t count -- before he continues. “Listen up…”

* * *

Gamora and Nebula have Mantis clutched between them, one upper arm each, careful to avoid any skin-to-skin contact that might activate her powers and dramatically alter this whole plan. Then again, when he thinks of the people on the team who are likely to ruin plans, Gamora and Nebula are last and next to last respectively. Which is exactly why he’s chosen them for this part of the job.

They’ve both changed outfits, sort of. They’re still wearing their usual clothes, but those are now obscured by a couple of long cloaks in the local style that Rocket may or may not have stolen from one of the nearby shops. They also may or may not be used, judging by the smell of them. Peter is _not_ gonna think about where those clothes have been before this, but he is _very_ glad that Gamora still has his scarf and that there’s a giant bathtub she might finally be persuaded to use waiting for her back on the Quadrant.

For his part, he’s stuck with Groot, Rocket, and Drax, watching as the women approach the door of the prison again and hoping against hope that his portion of the team will stay quiet for once. They’re a few hundred feet back from the prison door, obscured behind the only decent cover around, which is basically a giant pile of garbage. Because of course it is.

“I am Groot,” Groot grumbles, arms crossed over his chest. 

“This does suck,” Drax agrees. He’s pouting even more than Groot.

“You’re just mad that we didn’t let you bring your game,” Peter says to Groot. “Now hush. I’m trying to concentrate.” 

“Not like we can hear them anyway,” Rocket points out. He’s also pouting a bit, probably because he’s not front and center of the action right now. 

“I’m still trying to concentrate,” Peter says. “And we don’t want the guard to hear us.” 

He’s carefully watching the door, and Gamora, waiting for signs of trouble even though the guard hasn’t even come out yet. While he knows Gamora can take care of herself -- and Nebula and Mantis can too for that matter -- his heart is still pounding with fear, his head screaming at him that he shouldn’t be this far from her in a situation where she might be hurt. 

“We should have just waited back in the bar,” Drax says wistfully. Part of _his_ pouting is because they didn’t let him drink beforehand. 

“Shush,” Peter hisses, more urgently this time because now the door of the prison is opening, and a guard is standing there. It’s a different guard than the one that had answered before, thankfully; they’d known that was going to be the case because of what they overheard on the comms Nebula tapped, but Peter feels a wave of relief anyway. 

This guard looks at them in confusion. He’s smoking a disgusting looking nub of something, and is probably as drunk as everyone else on this stupid planet, judging by his slumped posture and slightly unsteady balance. That’s good, Peter thinks, because it makes him less of a threat to Gamora. And Nebula and Mantis, of course. He’s totally worried for them too, because he totally cares about them just as much and views the risk to them in this situation as exactly the same.

The guard blows out a puff of dark smoke as he opens his mouth to speak, brow furrowed. Peter leans a bit closer, as close as he can get while staying behind the trash pile. It’s all of about six inches closer, which does not magically give him the ability to overhear anything that any of them are saying. Cursing silently, he wishes that they’d had the tech to put comms on the others. Or maybe he wishes that he had enhanced hearing. Maybe he’ll ask that Fynn person Nebula seems so enthusiastic about…

For now, though, he’ll just have to watch and guess what’s being said. At least he knows how this thing is _supposed_ to be going, because it was his damn idea. And a brilliant one, if he does say so himself.

Judging from gestures, and his trust in Gamora and Nebula to be following the plan, they should be telling the guard that Mantis is a Nova Corps officer that they found attempting to hunt down criminals on this planet -- which is super plausible, Peter figured, because this planet is full of those. It’s really a good place to be hunting criminals, actually. 

Gamora and Nebula are claiming to be...well, reverse bounty hunters, he supposes, who are turning in Mantis in hopes of a reward. He highly doubts they’ll actually _get_ the reward, but hey, it would be a nice bonus if they do. All they really need is for the guard to arrest Mantis and take her inside. Judging by the way the first guard had reacted to the mention of Corman, the idea of Mantis being Nova Corps should be enough for this one. 

It only takes one -- very tense, on Peter’s part -- minute, and then he sees the guard taking Mantis, and slamming the door in Gamora and Nebula’s faces. He feels a surge of triumph that part one of the plan is complete, and also a little concern because they basically threw Mantis into the belly of the beast. But she had been very enthusiastic about this plan, and he’s just seen her take down giant monkey monsters that none of the rest of them could even affect, so a bunch of drunk, idiot guards should be no problem for her. 

Gamora and Nebula wait just a few more seconds -- probably long enough for Mantis and the guard to leave their enhanced earshot. Then they turn, almost eerily in tandem, and walk away from the prison, circling a few yards out before slipping behind the trash pile from the opposite side than the one the rest of the team used earlier. 

"Hey," Peter breathes, relief flooding over him that Gamora is away from the immediate threat, back where he can protect her. At least in theory. He is not going to start thinking about all the ways he failed to protect her before, because that is never going to happen again. He'll die before he'll let it. 

"I don't like being so far from the door," says Nebula, almost as if reading his mind. "If Mantis needs our assistance, we'll have to waste our time getting back over there."

"Yes," says Gamora. "But Mantis can handle herself. And we do not want to draw suspicion by loitering outside as if we're waiting to spring a trap." She glances at Peter, smiling a bit. "Which of course we are."

"Hey," says Drax, apparently focused for the first time in a bit. "Where is Mantis?"

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nebula says, giving him a disdainful look. 

“She’s inside, you moron,” Rocket says. “That’s like, the whole plan!” 

Peter is pretty sure that Drax is going to say that he wasn’t paying attention, but he can’t be certain because for once, _he_ isn’t paying attention, too focused on Gamora. She’s taking off the cloak she was using as a partial disguise, and seems relieved to be free of the extra, impractical fabric. 

“How did it go?” Peter asks her, though he could see for himself that it went well. 

“Exactly to plan,” Gamora reports. “The guard laughed at the idea of reward money, of course, but he bought the story. He even said they had _’some more Nova scum’_ in there, so he is probably going to take her to a cell near Corman, as we had hoped.” 

“Awesome,” Peter says, more than a little proud of his plan. “See?” he says, turning to Rocket and the others. “My plans work. You should listen to them more often.”

Rocket rolls his eyes. “We haven’t got Corman out yet, Star-Munch. Don’t get ahead of yourself.” 

“Be quiet,” Nebula says harshly. Not because she’s defending Peter, which he’d thought for an insane, split second, but because the door of the prison is opening again. To his immense relief, it’s Mantis who sticks her head out and enthusiastically waves for them to come over. That’s not quite the subtle signal that Peter had wanted her to use, but it means that she’s managed to knock out the guards, so he’ll overlook that. 

“Hey!” Rocket says delightedly, offering Nebula a shit-eating grin. “Don’t gotta be quiet now, do I?”

“Yes,” Nebula begins, but Rocket ignores her, pulling a blaster out and running with it, yelling, toward Mantis and the prison.

“Does he ever listen?” asks Gamora, sounding irritated. 

“Sometimes,” says Nebula, sighing. “He listens more than Drax does, at least.”

“Huh?” says Drax, apparently tuning back into the conversation at the sound of his name. He blinks, looking a bit bleary, possibly from being stunned by Mantis. Or possibly just because it’s in his genetic makeup. “What happened?”

Nebula throws her hands up and points toward the prison. “Forget it. Come on.”

Rocket is already most of the way there, still with his blaster out and still yelling. Peter feels his heart pounding as he follows Nebula and Gamora in the same direction, expecting more guards to come pouring out and grab Mantis again at any moment. 

The inside of the prison looks pretty much like he’d have expected it too, at least so far; they’re just in the crappy little hallway after the door, so this is all he can see besides some cells beyond. The hall is dirty and dingy and dimly lit. One of the lights is even flickering. Peter wonders if it’s been like that and no one has bothered to fix it, or if it happened while Mantis was in here kicking everyone’s asses. 

There’s a few guards lying on the ground, fast asleep. There’s at least four that he can see, and he’s sure there are more, since this is just the entrance. He takes a second to be impressed by Mantis’s powers, yet again. 

“Corman is this way!” she tells them, at the head of the group. “Come!”

She leads them down the entrance hall and to the right, down another row of cells, whose occupants appear very interested in what’s happening right now. Many of them call after them as they walk past, or just watch them shrewdly, but Peter ignores them. 

He’s focused on Gamora, who he’s right behind now, still paranoid about making sure she’s not in too much danger. He’s not going to let her wade into anything alone this time, at least not if he has any say in the matter. 

“It isn’t very large, considering how many criminals there are on this godforsaken planet,” Nebula points out. 

“Plenty full, though,” says Peter, glancing at several especially drunk dudes passed out in a heap in one cell. At least, he hopes they’re just drunk. Judging by the smell, they might actually be dead and rotting. 

“I have the sense that their definition of criminal is different from ours,” Gamora points out, looking at him over her shoulder as she continues to move gracefully through the cramped prison. If he’d tried to do that, he would have tripped and fallen on his face, Peter knows. But it goes without saying that Gamora is far more poised than he’ll ever be.

“True,” Peter agrees, smiling at her. “It’s, like, basically Opposite Day here. At least, when it comes to criminals. And their taste in music. And their taste in...well, everything.”

Gamora frowns. “What is Opposite Day? Is that a Terran custom?” She looks curious, despite the circumstances that they’re in, and also a little concerned, probably wondering whether she’s supposed to remember.

“Oh.” He scratches his head, feeling a pang as he thinks about it, remembers wishing that it could apply to his mother’s cancer, the day his grandpa sat him down and told him that she was going to die. “It was um...It was a kid thing? You’d say something you didn’t mean, like as a joke. And then you’d say ‘it’s Opposite Day’ and people would know you meant the opposite.”

Nebula turns and gives them both a disdainful look. “Like on Opposite Day, this conversation would actually have anything to do with the time-sensitive mission we’re on?” 

“That’s not really what it means,” Peter mutters, then sticks his tongue out at her before she turns back around to continue following Mantis down the hall. He supposes Nebula does kind of have a point, though. Mantis has knocked out all the guards she came across -- or at least, that was the plan, and she seems to have stuck to it -- but more could come out at any moment. Especially if one of these people in the cells starts yelling, though so far they don’t seem eager to get the guards back. 

Rocket, who is also not yelling says, “Where is Corman’s cell already? We gotta hurry the hell up.” 

“It is just up here!” Mantis says, pointing to the end of the hall, then taking a left when they get to the end of it. They round the corner into another hall, another row of small cells, and she leads them up to one about halfway down. 

Corman is standing at the ready by the bars of the cell, hands held behind his back as he watches their approach. Mantis probably informed him that they were coming to rescue him; or maybe that’s just how he’s been standing the whole time he’s been in here. The dude’s never relaxed a day in his life. 

Peter’s used to seeing him in his Nova Corps uniform, looking annoyingly resplendent even though the cut of those tunics makes most people look kind of dowdy. There probably isn’t an ounce of fat on Corman’s body, though, because he probably eats some ridiculous evidence-based, nutritionally-balanced diet that’s designed to optimize his bodily functions for his job. And he probably spends all of his free time training. If he even has free time. If he got his way, he’d probably go straight from one mission to another.

He doesn’t look quite as impressive as usual right now, though. His uniform is nowhere to be found, probably because he was originally supposed to be undercover on his mission with the Sons. Instead he’s wearing nondescript dark-colored clothes that are fairly torn up and dirty. There’s one particularly suspicious looking stain on one of the arms that Peter is trying very hard not to laugh at. Also, he realizes, Corman doesn’t appear to have aged much, which probably means he’s missed out on the past five years too. Peter is aware that it’s horrible of him to feel vindicated by that, but this dude does not need any more reinforcement to his narcissism. 

“Greetings, Guardians,” he says formally, with a single nod. No _’thank you so much for coming to my rescue_ ’ or anything like that, just a _hey_. Not that Peter’s in this for the accolades or anything, really, but c’mon; a little gratitude wouldn’t hurt anybody, would it? 

Apparently that simple greeting is too much for Rocket, though, because he’s already impatiently shooing Corman away from the cell door. He’s too eager to blow something up for niceties, Peter supposes. He often is. “Move it! Step back unless you want your fingers blasted off!” 

Corman obeys, efficiently of course, taking two steps back so he’s on the other side of the very small cell. Then Rocket attaches a device to the locking mechanism on the cell door and takes a step back as well. 

It’s over in a second; a small _boom_ , and the lock is hanging off the door so now Rocket is able to easily slide it open. 

Peter glances around, paranoid that the explosion, however relatively quiet it was, might have drawn the attention of some lurking guards. Nebula and Gamora are standing on either side of the group, watching the halls, and Peter knows with their hearing they’d be able to detect signs of approaching guards before he could. 

Still. No reason to delay. “C’mon,” he tells Corman, waving him on. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“Not just yet,” says Corman, though he does walk out of the cell. As he moves closer, Peter realizes that he’s taken on the stench of everything on this planet, which is both disgusting and kind of hilarious. Most definitely unlike the pompous, arrogant Corman he’s used to. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gamora make a subtle face of disgust and just about starts laughing.

“Why?” asks Peter, still barely containing himself. “You wanna take a shower first?”

“Yeah,” Rocket chimes in, “‘cause man, you are _rank._ ”

Drax laughs uproariously and Nebula snorts. Gamora just gives a little shake of her head, but Peter feels a flush of pleasure at that nonetheless.

Having absolutely no sense of humor, Corman ignores the comments about how gross he is and goes right on ahead being both difficult and ungrateful for his rescue. “We still have some business to attend to in here before we leave.”

Drax perks up. “Is it the Sons of Thanos? Are they here? I will slay them with my knives!”

It had better be the Sons, thinks Peter, or else he’s about to get real annoyed.

Predictably, though, Corman shakes his head. “Not enemies. Colleagues, of a sort. Others who have been imprisoned here unjustly.”

Rocket blinks at him, unimpressed. “Where? And what’re they payin’ us to bust them out?”

“There is a Badoon merchant who is here on false charges,” Corman says solemnly, equally unimpressed by Rocket’s objection. “In the next cell block. And an A’askvariian law enforcement officer who is here for similar reasons that I am.” 

“And what reason is that?” Rocket says with a cackle. “Smellin’ like a sewer?” 

“The citizens of this planet appear to dislike law enforcement,” Corman says. 

“Yeah, we noticed,” Peter says, bitter that Corman thinks they need that explained to them. “But we don’t have time to turn this into a rescue mission for every sucker in this place.” 

“I am a Nova Corps officer,” Corman says, and Peter sighs internally at his lecture voice, “and you are Guardians of the Galaxy. It is our duty to assist innocents in need.” 

“Oh my god,” Rocket groans. 

“We shouldn’t let innocent people stay in this place,” Gamora says, and Peter is suddenly a lot more interested in this idea. His desire to please Gamora outweighs his desire for Corman to not win. 

“Fine,” Peter sighs. “But hurry up and lead us to these other _’innocent’_ people.”

“Let us save more friends!” Mantis says cheerfully, as if they’re going to play a fun game rather than risk the timing of this mission. 

“Hey!” Rocket protests as Corman begins walking at a brisk pace down the hall, the opposite direction of the exit. “We never discussed payment! We better get some extra units for this!” 

“So there are no Sons here?” Drax asks, sounding immensely disappointed, but keeping his knives out as they follow Corman down the line of cells. 

“No,” says Corman, his tone darkening unmistakably, though he doesn’t slow in his pace, turn to look at them, or otherwise do anything to let on that he might be less than thrilled with anything he’s about to say. “In that sense, my mission was a failure. I intended to lead the Nova Corps straight to them with the isotope under my skin. Instead, I led all of _you_ to this godforsaken planet.” He sounds about as displeased by seeing them as he does by the fact that he’s ended up imprisoned on Maliv.

“ _You_ failed?” Rocket taunts, sounding suddenly much more interested in what Corman has to say. “Do tell.”

Corman sighs. “Well, as you know, the intention was for me to remain undercover on the Sons’ ship until such time that the Nova Corps could track me and send in a team to take them out.” He slows for just a second, looks down his nose at Rocket. “I did not realize that team would be you.”

“Oh, well, lucky surprise,” says Peter, and grins obnoxiously when Corman finally tosses a glance in his direction.

He chooses to ignore that too. “However, they realized I was a spy. They were going to kill me, but fortunately, I managed to steal an escape pod. Unfortunately, it landed here on Maliv.”

“So that whole mission was pointless?” Nebula says. Peter beams; he does enjoy it when the rest of the team is finally on his side about something. Sure, some of them had defended Corman earlier, but now they see how goddamn annoying he is. 

“Not entirely,” Corman says stiffly. He doesn’t elaborate, though, which makes Peter think he’s just bluffing because he’s embarrassed that he did such a terrible job. 

It could also be because they’re now in front of the cell of one of the people he’s decided they need to risk _this_ mission to save. He gestures to the cell, where an A’askvariian is watching them with great anticipation. 

“This is officer Celar’ath,” Corman says. “She was here on a mission of peace and has been wrongly imprisoned. Please release her.”

“I am Groot,” he grumps, speaking up for the first time in a while. Peter grins; the translation is basically, ‘ _we don’t need a formal introduction. Moron.’_

“Yeesh, I really gotta do everything,” Rocket says irritably, working to attach another small bomb to the lock of this cell. 

“Who is the one who put all of the guards to sleep?” Gamora points out. Mantis raises her hand with an enthusiastic grin, as if that was a serious question. 

“Yeah!” Peter says triumphantly. “And who came up with that awesome plan in the first place?”

“Blowing stuff up was _my_ plan,” Rocket says. He gives them no more warning than a quick shooing motion before he detonates the bomb, successfully destroying the lock and releasing Celar’ath. 

She ducks her head politely and nods at them before moving out of the cell. “Thank you, Guardians.”

“Hey, it’s no problem at all,” says Peter, practically glowing as usual in response to praise. And she’d even recognized their team and sounded happy about it to boot. Unlike Corman the freaking buzzkill. Nevermind that just a few moments ago, Peter himself was uninterested in helping anyone else escape. That is totally ancient history and totally beside the point.

“It will be a problem if we don’t get out of here soon,” says Nebula, which earns her a glare from Gamora, who is apparently still dedicated to the idea of doing the right thing here, because of course she is, because she’s amazing.

“How did you learn of other innocents?” she asks, looking at Corman with more interest than he really deserves.

Corman puffs out his chest a bit at being asked that question. “Well, naturally, I am a trained member of the Nova Corps and my senses are always attuned to collecting relevant information from my surroundings, so I--”

“I told him,” Celar’ath interrupts. “I warned him of this planet’s prejudice against officers of the law, and told him that if he continued to flaunt his Nova Corps status, the guards would make him pay for it painfully.”

“Quill!” Drax interrupts, before Peter can fully appreciate the way Corman’s bragging has just been shut down. “Is this your A’askvariian former lover?”

“Excuse me?” Celar’ath says, as Peter nearly chokes on air.

“No!” Peter says vehemently, glancing nervously at Gamora, whose brows are hitched up her forehead. “No, she’s not--and that was one time, Drax, oh my god, that does not count as a _lover_.” He turns more fully to Gamora. “There never was one, okay? It was one time and it was definitely not her!”

“Definitely not,” Celar’ath says with a sniff, sounding distinctly offended. Which hey, she should totally not be offended because he is a catch! But this is really not what he wanted brought up in front of Gamora. 

“Shall we move on?” Gamora says, even as Rocket and Drax both cackle. Mantis is also laughing, though Peter suspects that’s just because she tends to laugh when everyone else does. Even Groot and Nebula are smirking. 

“Yes!” Peter says quickly. “Because this conversation is stupid and pointless. Also, it was way before I met you,” he adds to Gamora. 

“I know, Peter,” she tells him, sounding more bemused than anything. But still, he is totally going to hide Drax’s favorite snacks later in retaliation. 

“I am finding this very relevant,” Nebula says helpfully. 

“I wish you all luck,” Celar’ath says, waving at them with one of her tentacles before she heads towards the exit, the way they _all_ should be going, if it weren’t for Corman and his stupid self-righteousness. 

"You can come with us if you want to!" Mantis calls after her, looking a bit disappointed when she doesn't stop or otherwise acknowledge that offer. It isn't clear whether she didn't hear or has chosen not to respond. If it's the latter, Peter thinks that he absolutely cannot blame her. 

"She cannot come with us," Drax says. "Haven't you noticed Quill is with Gamora?"

"Hey!" says Peter. "I mean, that is absolutely most definitely totally true, but people don't have to be my -- my --" He can't bring himself to say 'hook up' or 'booty call' right now in front of Gamora so he shakes his head, making a noise of frustration. "My whatever to come with us. We can just be helping them. Corman's gonna come with us and he's definitely not--"

"The other prisoner who needs our help is this way," Corman interrupts, and starts walking without waiting for acknowledgement. This cell is at least a little ways back toward the exit, thankfully, and Peter is not about to protest the change of subject. 

"This is Turmlin," says Corman, stopping in front of the cell. "He was arrested for attempting to sell me supplies."

Turmlin is a Badoon, and Peter gathers from that information that he’s likely a travelling trader. He’s sitting in his cell with his arms crossed over his scaley chest, watching them distrustfully. Well, Peter thinks so, anyway; it’s hard to tell if he’s glaring at him or if that’s just his face. He always has that trouble with Badoons. 

“And that’s the last time I try to do trade on this planet,” Turmlin says, confirming Peter’s suspicion. 

“This is the last time we’re doing anything on this planet,” Rocket mutters, digging out more supplies to blow this cell door open too. Peter silently agrees. 

“Hey!” comes a voice from the cell next door. This one holds a man who looks to be a native of this planet, though that’s another thing Peter’s having trouble telling with how dirty everybody is; does this planet not have showers? He wouldn’t be surprised. They also probably don’t have toothbrushes, judging by the color of this dude’s teeth, and the small number of them remaining in his head. 

“You guys bustin’ people outta here?” the man continues, looking excited. “Me next!”

“Are you here under false charges?” Corman says primly, looking him up and down. 

“Yeah, totally!” the man says, lying through his few, yellow teeth. “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

“He is here because he set a bar on fire,” Turmlin says flatly. “It completely burned down.” 

“Yeah, but it was a crappy bar,” the man says, as if that should be obvious, and reason enough to commit arson. 

"Oh," says Drax. "That is understandable."

"Pretty sure every bar on this damn planet is crappy," Peter reminds him. "That's not a reason to commit a crime. Especially not one that probably put people's lives in danger."

The prisoner shrugs. "Only the ones that were passed out at their tables burned."

"Seems fair," says Rocket, definitely just to be contrary. He's still mostly focused on the task of getting the cell open. He must be out of the type of small grenades he's used on the other cells, because now he's having to modify a larger one. 

"Yeah," says the prisoner. "You let them out. It's only fair you let me out too."

"We are not here to free violent criminals," says Corman, in his patented holier-than-thou tone. "While the inhabitants of this planet certainly seem to be corrupt in many ways, we are not here to be judge and jurors for all of you or to stage some sort of revolution."

"Yeah," says Peter. " _We_ are here to rescue your sorry ass because you screwed up your mission."

"I didn't hear that you did any better against the Sons," says Corman. 

"Excuse me," Turmlin interrupts, "but are you actually planning on letting me out?"

“Are you plannin’ on letting _me_ out?” the other man asks, his hands clenched into fists at his sides as if he can actually do anything from inside that cell. 

“At least we escaped ourselves,” Peter counters to Corman. 

“Yes,” Nebula says to Turmlin. Then she turns to the man in the other cell to glare at him. “And no.” 

“I’m clearly working on it!” Rocket says irritably to Turmlin. “Ain’t my fault I’ve had to use so many of these already today!”

“I also escaped the Sons myself,” Corman says primly. Which is totally just a technicality, Peter thinks, annoyed. 

“Hey!” the dude in the other cell says. _He_ seems annoyed that they’re not listening to him, and Peter’s annoyed at his existence. “Ain’t bustin’ people outta prison illegal too? What makes you think you’re better than me?” 

“I am Groot,” Groot mutters. 

“This planet _is_ the worst,” Nebula agrees. 

“We are on a righteous mission to free the innocent!” Drax declares. 

“Exactly!” Mantis says. She does a little cheer, which Peter isn’t sure really goes with the whole righteous thing. 

“Looks to _me_ ,” the dude says, now glaring at them all with a vehement hatred, “that yer breakin’ the law. Seems to me like I should do somethin’ about that.”

“Oh yeah?” Rocket taunts. “And what are you gonna do about it from in there?” 

“Rocket,” Gamora hisses. “Stop goading him.”

“What?” Rocket says with a laugh. “Ain’t like he can--”

Peter sees what he’s about to do a split second before he actually does. He’s only got time to mutter, “Oh, fuck,” before the man opens his mouth. 

“Guards!” he yells at the top of his lungs. “Guards! Prisoners are escaping!” 

Peter has a split second of hope that maybe Mantis has knocked all of them out already, that maybe there are no more guards to come. This place is pretty small, after all, and there were a _lot_ of unconscious bodies on the floor as they were coming in. Maybe this dude is just going to yell his head off and not accomplish--

“They’re coming,” Gamora says urgently.

Nebula nods emphatically, as if Peter needed anyone to confirm that Gamora is always right about everything.

For a moment all he can feel is a burst of fear at the idea that they are about to be in danger, that _she_ is about to be in danger. That they probably have _been_ in danger all along and have been wasting time bickering about worthless shit like his embarrassing past flings. 

“Let’s go!” he orders, and starts to try to guide Gamora towards the exit.

He only makes it about two steps, though, before Gamora grabs his arm, stopping him in his tracks. “Wait. We haven’t freed Turmlin yet. We can’t just _leave_.”

“She’s right,” says Corman, again totally pointlessly. “You are the Guardians of the Galaxy, are you not? Surely with my help, you are capable of facing a few prison guards.”

“I don’t see you doing anything to help so far!” Rocket yells, speeding up his efforts to modify his bomb, his paws moving frantically. 

Peter freezes for a second, panicked; all he wanted to do was keep Gamora out of danger, and now he’s failed because his damn team can’t stay focused and Corman derailed their mission with his pompous asshole-ness. It’s like he’s on Knowhere all over again, watching as the world turns to fire around them, helpless to protect the thing he cares about most in the universe. 

“We’ll protect each other,” Gamora reminds him in a quiet voice, her hand sliding down his arm to his, squeezing it briefly. 

“Right,” he says, schooling himself. He’s the leader, isn’t he? He’s got four years of experience getting these goons together in a crisis, and this is far from the worse they’ve faced. _Get it together, Quill,_ he tells himself. He’ll protect Gamora and this team with everything he’s got. 

And if Gamora gets hurt during this, he’s going to strangle Corman with his bare hands. 

“You are such an asshole,” he tells the man in the other cell, to make himself feel a little better as guards finally become visible, turning the corners on either side of the hall they’re in and running towards them, some of them already shooting before they could possibly have even gaged the situation. 

There are shouts from several of the cells surrounding them, and Peter realizes with horror that the guards are either such bad shots or so completely uncaring that much of their blaster fire is aimed towards the other prisoners who can’t exactly get out of the way. He doesn’t even want to think about how many of them might be wrongfully imprisoned in this shithole. The jackass who called the guards notwithstanding. Peter would have absolutely no problem with that dude catching a few stray blaster shots. Or twelve. 

“Rocket, hurry up!” he orders, “we’ll cover you!” He moves to stand in front of Rocket -- and also in front of Gamora -- as the half dozen or so guards close in. 

Corman moves to shield them on the other side of the hall and Peter realizes belatedly that having just been imprisoned means the dude doesn’t have any weapons. And yet here he is walking directly into the line of fire like some kind of self-sacrificing--

“Corman!” Peter calls, and sighs before tossing him one of his blasters. He might not like the guy, but they are on the same side after all. “I better get that back.”

Corman doesn’t respond, merely turns back around after catching it and aiming the fire at the approaching guards. Everybody else has their weapons out too, aside from Mantis and Groot, whose bodies are their weapons. 

“Stay down, Groot!” Peter yells, which never works, but he tries sometimes anyway. Unsurprisingly, Groot doesn’t listen, already extending his vines at an approaching guard to capture him and slam him against a cell door, causing it to rattle. Mantis has jumped onto the back of the nearest one, her hands on his head, but the wild fire of blaster shots all around them seems to be making it harder than usual for her to put him to sleep. 

Peter only sees these things in passing, though, as he turns his focus onto Gamora. She’s got her sword drawn, and she uses it to neatly block a blaster shot before running to block Rocket from a charging guard. Peter follows after her in a panic, wanting to remain as close to her as possible. 

There are only a few guards, though from the noise of all the blaster fire and the shouting of them and the inmates, it sounds like a lot more. It might be an easy fight if it weren’t for the fact that they, unlike the guards, are worried about accidentally hurting the prisoners in the process. Peter shoots at one, but only manages to graze his shoulder because he’s standing so near to a cell door. 

“Hurry up, Rocket!” Nebula calls. 

“I’m workin’ on it!” he yells back. “Ah, fuck it! Duck! Move back!” 

"Get down!" Peter yells to the others but mostly to Gamora, who's standing the closest to Rocket out of all of them. 

She says something in response, but Peter doesn't have enhanced ears and it's so loud in here now that the racket alone is giving him a headache. He curses his Terran senses, but mostly what he feels is panic. This situation is going from bad to worse right in front of his eyes and there's nothing he can do to get it back under control, to ensure that Gamora isn't about to be hurt or killed. God, how did he go so many years and so many missions beside her without fear like this? It wasn't like he ever thought either of them was immortal but now he cannot stop seeing all the infinite ways she could be killed, could be taken from him again. 

"Get down!" he repeats and then throws himself on top of her, just barely managing to get one arm under her head so that it doesn't hit the floor. She manages to throw her sword arm out to one side so that it doesn't impale him, though she's clearly shocked at finding herself in this position. 

Rocket's bomb goes off a second later, a wave of heat and concussion sweeping over them, much bigger than any of his other explosions today. Peter feels searing pain all down his back, but all he can focus on is the memory of Knowhere, of fire all around. 

He can hear Gamora yell his name in the present, mixed with the memory of her saying it, anguished on Knowhere. The fear that she might be hurt here and now is enough for him to snap out of it; he lifts his head, and through the cloud of smoke that Rocket’s bomb has created, he can make out that her face is not contorted in pain, just fear. 

Dimly, he’s aware of bodies running around through the fog. The blast must have opened more than just Turmlin’s cell. Those opened include the one of the bastard who caused all this in the first place. Peter sees him run past, yelling, “Thanks, losers!” as he does. Asshole. Peter has the vague, fleeting hope that the others Rocket freed aren’t as dickheaded as that guy is.

“Peter!” Gamora says again. Her voice is urgent, frantic. “Are you hurt?”

“‘M fine,” he grunts, though his back feels like it’s on fire. 

“Come on!” Nebula yells through the chaos. “We freed him, let’s get out of here! I can hear more guards coming!”

 

That pushes Peter into action. He shoves himself off of Gamora and into a standing position, though that makes his back protest so vehemently that he nearly cries out. 

“Come here!” Gamora says harshly, standing quickly after him. She doesn’t wait for him to answer, just tugs his arm over her shoulders. That pull of skin hurts, but he doesn’t even think about resisting as she helps him run, following the others out of this shit hole. He doesn’t think Gamora is injured; or if she is, it’s not visible to him, and she’s certainly well enough to drag him along. 

He smiles through the pain, and the chaos of their escape, satisfied.


	29. Chapter 29

Gamora wants to pick Peter up and carry him back to the ship.

It isn’t because he’s incapable of walking, or even because there’s a real threat of pursuit from the guards — He’s clearly in pain, but adrenaline seems to be carrying him along just fine. And the upside of Rocket’s unexpectedly large blast is that the guards are all either stunned or dealing with other prisoners who have escaped.

Still, the smell of charred fabric and flesh are unmistakable. Unmistakably coming _from Peter_ , which makes them even more sickening than the other odors in this place. Not so much disgusting — which she could totally handle from him — but alarming. 

She still doesn’t know much about his physiology, but she knows enough to be aware that it’s more fragile than hers, that this kind of an injury could easily send him into shock or worse. And she knows that he took it for her, to protect her, which was incredibly foolish when her body and her modifications would be infinitely better-equipped to withstand the blast and heal from the aftermath. 

Still, Peter is nothing if not stubborn, which means insisting on getting back to the Benatar on his own two feet, her offers of more help notwithstanding. 

When they finally make it back — which realistically probably does not take that long, but feels like an eternity to Gamora — Peter starts to head directly to the cockpit, likely to the pilot’s seat, and she finally puts her foot down. 

“No,” she says firmly. “Absolutely not, Peter.”

“What?” he says innocently. Unlike most of the time he uses that tone, she truly does believe he doesn’t know what she means; he likely sees nothing wrong with ignoring his own injuries while they make their escape. 

“Rocket or Nebula can pilot the ship,” she tells him. “We are going to take care of your wound.”

“But—” he begins, glancing in the direction of the cockpit where the others are already heading. 

“No,” she repeats. She grabs hold of his arm and steers him away, directing him towards the bunks instead. He could put up more of a fight if he wanted to, she knows, though she could easily overpower him if she had to. Thankfully she doesn’t; though reluctant, Peter follows her direction. 

Behind them, Corman says, “I am more than capable of flying—”

“No!” Peter yells over his shoulder, turning in a way that must twist at the burn on his back, making him hiss. Gamora’s resolve strengthens and she tightens her grip on his arm. 

“Relax, Star-Munch,” Rocket says, all but shoving Corman out of the way as he strides into the cockpit. “I’ve got it.” 

"Good," says Peter, his tone proving that despite all their bickering and petty insults, he really does trust Rocket to take care of the ship and the team. "Thank you."

"Yeah, well," Rocket tosses over his shoulder, "least I can do after roastin' you."

"So that's taken care of," Gamora says firmly. "And now I am going to take care of _you._ "

"Ooh," says Peter, tone injected with a levity that's absolutely fake. She's starting to recognize it as one of the ones he uses when he's unwilling to let anyone know how distressed he really is. "That a threat?"

"Peter," she sighs, half exasperated and half concerned. But she decides to go with it, because it seems the easiest route to take. "Yes. You. Captain's quarters. Now."

He gives her one of those little salutes, then grimaces at the way lifting his arm must aggravate the wound on his back. Then he hesitates outside the door, which makes her realize that they haven't been back to these quarters since -- well, since everything between them changed. Since he took care of her after the Xurcoils attack. 

That feels like a lifetime ago now, as if all of that was just as much a part of the life she doesn’t remember as those four years she’s actually missing. But it was only a matter of weeks ago that they were last here; that _he_ was the one taking care of _her_. So much has happened since then, it feels strange to be faced with the reality of how recently they were still dancing around the awkwardness of their...situation. 

But dwelling on that isn’t going to ease Peter’s pain, so she forces herself to push open the door and usher him inside. 

“Sit on the bed,” she tells him, all but pushing him onto it. 

“If you wanted to snuggle, you coulda just said so,” he says, which does nothing to disguise the way he winces as he sits down slower than he normally would. 

“I _want_ to go get the first aid kit,” she says, which isn’t true, strictly speaking, because she doesn’t actually want to leave his side right now. “And I want you to wait right there. I’ll be right back.” That part is all true. 

Before she turns to leave, she can’t help noticing that the bed is still in disarray from the last time they were here, when they’d shared it after the attack; when she’d still been trying to convince herself that she was not in love with him, that the memories belonged to a person completely separate from her despite the connection she already felt. All of that seems so deluded now, so very far away.

Unfortunately, though nobody’s made the bed since then, they _did_ put the first aid kit back where it belongs in the common area. Which is bad, because it means she has to leave Peter — even briefly — alone and in pain. But it’s also good, since it means that the kit has been restocked. They’d used rather a lot of it in the aftermath of the Xurcoils and the battle with the Sons, she seems to recall.

She moves as quickly as she possibly can, snagging it by the handle and practically running back to the captain’s quarters. When she gets back less than a minute later, she finds Peter still sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling to get his shirt off. He’s got one arm inside of it somehow, and the other one still in its sleeve, but bent and tangled up in the rest of his shirt as he attempts to wriggle it over his head. As this can hardly be the first time he’s ever taken his own shirt off, she gathers the struggle comes from attempting to do it in a way that won’t aggravate the wound on his back. Judging from the pained expression on his face, he’s failing in both respects. 

“Peter!” she says with some alarm, hurrying over to the bed. She deposits the first aid kit quickly and puts a hand on his arm to still him. “What are you doing?”

“I knew you’d ask me to strip anyway,” he says, forced levity in his tone. He does at least look a bit sheepish. “Figured I’d get a head start.”

“I was not going to ask you to _strip_ ,” she says, exasperated. Not in those words, anyway. She does need him to take his shirt off, though, so she grabs the hem of it. “Can you lift that arm?” 

“Of course,” he says, as though it’s the easiest thing in the world as he raises it much slower than she thinks he would normally. He gives her a proud grin when he does. 

Ignoring that, she carefully lifts his shirt up and over his head, pulling it away from his back as much as possible. She hears him hiss again when it passes over the injured area, anyway. 

The back of the shirt is singed, she realizes with a fresh sense of sickening alarm. It was hard to see with it on him, in part because she hadn’t really been focused on the appearance of it and in part because the shirt itself is black. But the burn marks are difficult to miss now, with it in her hands, as is the fact that the fibers on the back of it are _melted together._

“Hey, good thing that wasn’t one of my favorites,” says Peter, clearly still trying to inject levity, though he’s starting to shiver noticeably, probably going into shock from the pain. 

“Why weren’t you wearing a jacket?” asks Gamora, thinking that any one of the many she’s seen in his closet probably would have protected him from this injury. She’s seen him in a jacket more days than not — at least that she can remember — but today he’d gone on the job with only this pathetically thin shirt. Which she now hates for its failure to protect him. 

He sighs. “Well, you know, we were late. And I was a little distracted by kissing you. Okay, more like a lot distracted. So I got to the Benatar before I realized I didn’t have one and then I wasn’t gonna go back, so…” He breaks off, shrugs, and then makes a noise of pain at that movement.

“Peter,” she says, wincing as that noise tugs at her heart. “You are never going on a mission without a jacket again.”

“What if we go on a mission to somewhere really hot?” he asks. “Like, a volcano or something?”

“You do not need any more close contact with heat,” she says firmly. That noise of pain has refocused her, though; she opens the first aid kit and moves it closer to him on the bed. Then, rather than make him turn or adjust so his back is facing her, she climbs up onto the bed on her knees and crawls around behind him. 

She lets out her own noise at the sight of his burns, a sympathetic hiss. They’re likely the kind that look worse than they are, and they thankfully don’t seem too deep. But she knows those surface level burns often hurt the worst, and they cover much of his back, angry red streaks across his skin, a couple areas that look like blisters. 

“Peter,” she whispers again. 

“It’s not that bad,” he says with false bravado, obviously trying to make her feel better. But she is the one who needs to do that for him right now. 

“Nothing we can’t heal,” she says. Which is true, but she still vehemently dislikes that he’s injured in the first place. 

“Not as bad as Infinity Stone burns,” says Peter, his voice tight. “So that’s something.”

An image pops into her mind then; no, a memory. A hotel on Xandar, nicer than any she’d ever been inside of, save for when she’d been causing devastation. Strong emotions, equal parts exhaustion and relief, fear and joy at having something resembling friends. Peter’s skin, covered in spidery burn marks from the Stone that had nearly killed him, and his gentle hands on her own wounds, taking care of her in ways she hadn’t known since childhood.

“Gamora?” he prompts, sounding concerned now, and she realizes abruptly that she’s gone still, caught up again in that peculiar sense of not-quite-deja vu, memories that are at once familiar and completely novel. 

“No,” she says finally, leaning around him to meet his eyes. “No, not as bad as that.”

He smiles, despite everything. “You remember?”

She nods, finding his hand and squeezing it. At least it isn’t injured, so she isn’t afraid of offering him comfort that way. “I do. And I am glad it’s not as bad now.”

“I survived that too,” he points out, as if that’s proof that she shouldn’t be worried about his injuries now. In a way it _is_ comforting to be reminded that his body can take far more of a beating than one of Rocket’s bombs. 

“I still don’t want you to be any kind of injured,” she points out. “Especially not on my behalf. _Especially_ not when I would be able to heal much faster than you.”

“I don’t care about that,” he insists, squeezing her hand back. “I don’t want _you_ hurt at all either.” 

“You are being ridiculous,” she informs him, sliding her hand free from his so she can grab some disinfectant spray from the first aid kit. She needs to focus on taking care of him, rather than on the thought of him getting hurt again, lest she find herself bursting into tears or yelling at him out of desperate frustration. 

He looks like he’s about to respond to her accusation, but then his eyes catch the bottle in her hand and his whole face transforms at once, from serious and stubborn to a childlike pout. “Aw, man, Gamora, do we have to do that?”

She arches her brow. “Disinfect your wound? Yes. Unless you would like this to turn into an infection that sends you to the infirmary.”

“No,” he sighs, like it’s a difficult thing to admit. “But--ugh, that stuff stings so much.”

“It’s not that bad,” she says, shaking her head. Deciding that the anticipation of the pain is probably the worst part for him, she begins spraying without further ado. 

“Ah!” he yelps, twisting instinctively away. She anticipated that reaction somehow, though, and has already grasped his shoulder to keep him in place. 

It only takes a matter of seconds and then she’s done. “See?” 

"I hate that stuff," he whines, though it's clear from the way his shoulder relaxes under her hand that the analgesic in the spray is kicking in and his pain is decreasing.

"Well," says Gamora, "if you don't want me to have to use it on you, then perhaps next time you should listen when I tell you to get out of the way."

"Oh, is that what you were saying?" he asks, in a tone that's actually pretty believable. He doesn't look surprised to be learning this, though. "It was really loud and I couldn't hear."

Gamora narrows her eyes at him. "If you had been able to hear me, would you have listened and gotten yourself to safety?"

"Oh, no way," says Peter, giving her an obnoxious grin she's certain is still hiding its own particular kind of pain. 

" _Peter,_ " she sighs, then digs back into the kit, pulling out the bottle of painkillers and another of the electrolyte drink. 

"Aw, man," he says, as he nevertheless takes both from her. "All my least favorite things." He breaks the seal on the drink and uses it to swallow three pills, grimacing at the taste. "Well, the pills are okay, I guess. And you. You're my favorite thing in the galaxy, actually."

Before she can reconsider, or even consider in the first place, really, she says, “And you are mine.” It comes out rather fiercely, like an accusation, which it sort of is, she supposes. 

Peter’s eyes widen, and he looks at her like she’s just said something astonishing. Surely it can’t be that surprising to him? This is the first time she remembers expressing that sentiment, but it can’t be the first time he’s heard it from her. Or he at least shouldn’t be surprised that she feels that way. Perhaps he’s just surprised that she admitted it out loud. She sort of is, too. She never really thought about it, but he absolutely is her favorite thing in the galaxy, the most important thing to her. 

He means more to her than anything. She _loves_ him more than anything. 

To distract herself from the look on his face, and from the heat in her cheeks at that admission, she grabs the gauze from the first aid kit and sets about preparing a long enough piece to cover his back as she continues. “I don’t want you doing stupid things and getting hurt because of me. You did not need to overreact like that. I could have gotten out of the way of that blast fine, and neither of us needed to get hurt.” 

“I would rather overreact than underreact and see you get killed!” he says, a desperate edge to his voice. 

"Peter," she sighs again, though now her tone is more pained than exasperated. She's seen the grief and the fear in his eyes, just below the surface all day long. He's been making a valiant effort to keep it concealed, to be the leader for this team, but the cracks in the facade have been agonizingly evident at least to her. Gamora turns her full attention to the gauze for now, deciding that she needs to finish taking care of his wound before they can discuss this in earnest. 

He flinches as she starts carefully laying the gauze, and the bandages over it. Apparently the spray and the pills are doing a good job, though, because he doesn't react any further after that initial anticipatory reaction. 

"Yeah," he says finally, familiar forced lightness in his tone. "That's my name, don't wear it out."

Gamora blinks, confused. "What?"

He shrugs a bit sheepishly. "You said my name, so I said -- you know."

She takes a breath and closes the kit, then moves carefully to sit next to him on the edge of the mattress. "Okay. So you said -- you don't want to underreact. Is that what you're afraid of?"

“I’m not—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, stumbling over his words. “I’m just trying to protect you.” 

“Peter,” she says again, despite his earlier instruction. “I know you’re afraid. I’ve seen it in you all day. You’re not doing a very good job of hiding it.”

“Gee, thanks,” he mutters, and she sighs. 

“It’s not an insult, Peter,” she tells him. She hesitates for a second, still finding it difficult to allow herself to be vulnerable. But if she wants Peter to be honest with her, she should do the same. “I’m afraid too.” 

“Yeah?” he asks. His shoulders, which had relaxed earlier thanks to the reprieve from pain, are tense again. She feels bad about it, but if they don’t talk about this now, when will they? The next time Peter risks his life to protect her? What if there won’t even be a chance after that? 

“Yes,” she says firmly. She puts her hand on his shoulder, his skin a little slick, almost clammy. He shivers but not in a bad way, she thinks, so she keeps her hand there. “Is it because of Knowhere? I know that planet must have reminded you...”

If possible, he tenses even more, resolutely avoiding her eyes. She expects him to go into denial again, but his chest heaves on a deep breath before he says, “I’ve never failed worse than I did that day. I lost the most important thing in the universe.” 

“And yet I am right here,” says Gamora. She takes his hand in her free one and forces herself to meet his eyes. 

It feels like one of the riskiest things she has ever said to anyone: Not just because she’s assuming that he was referring to her as the most important thing in the universe, but because...well, she is making the claim that she is the same as the woman he lost. Despite the things that she is still relearning. For a moment she feels like everything comes to a standstill, nothing but her heart pounding and the blood rushing in her ears and the certainty that he is about to reject her, to call her an imposter after everything.

“I know,” says Peter, breaking the spell. “I _know_ but that’s not — It isn’t because of me. It’s — in _spite_ of me.”

Gamora frowns, not following. “What do you mean?”

“You — You’re here,” he says. “I got you back. But it wasn’t because I protected you. It’s because you’re a _fucking miracle_ who found your way back to us even though I failed.”

She swallows at the emotion in his voice; she certainly doesn’t see herself as a miracle. Really, Nebula had more to do with her coming back than she herself did. But this is the way Peter sees her, and she doesn’t want to fight him on that. 

“You did not fail,” she tells him, because she does want to fight him on the way he sees himself. “I--I remember what happened that day. That part of it, anyway. And I know Thanos. Nothing and nobody could have stopped him from getting to me.” She squeezes Peter’s hand, and his shoulder, as if her physical hold on him can force him to understand. “But you helped defeat him, and now he’s gone.”

“I know,” he says. He squeezes her hand back. “But there’s so much dangerous shit out there, Mora. I can’t lose you again.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” she says vehemently. “I’m not opposed to you protecting me sometimes. We protect each other. But there is a difference between protecting me and getting yourself killed to keep me from getting a scratch.”

He huffs out a disbelieving laugh and looks at her with a sort of wonder in his eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” she says firmly. “You acting like an idiot could get you killed. And then _I_ will lose the most important thing in the universe.” 

Peter draws in a breath through a throat that sounds tight, then works to swallow. “I — I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, I just...”

“You just?” she prompts, sensing that there’s something else to it, something he’s having a hard time admitting. He doesn’t speak yet, though, so she continues, guessing. “You didn’t think I could take care of myself?” It isn’t quite resentful or angry, but it _is_ firm.

He tenses further, his whole posture changing so that he’s sitting up straight in spite of the pain. “You keep saying we’ll protect one another.” 

Again, he doesn’t elaborate further, so she forces herself to go on, to guess, though it feels like she’s stabbing in the dark when the answer should be clearly illuminated. “Do you not believe that, Peter?”

“I —” His voice breaks and for a moment she thinks all of his composure is going to come tumbling down, that he’ll finally be completely unable to hold himself together. He manages, though, the muscles in his jaw taut and the hand that isn’t holding hers balled into a fist. “I want to. I do. But you don’t — You _can’t_ remember how many times we made that promise to each other before, Gamora. But then it came to Thanos and — And I _told_ you to go _right._ ”

“Oh,” she says in a small voice. She does remember that; it was one of the first things from that part of her life that she remembered, thanks to the Xurcoils. She just wanted to protect him, didn’t want him hurt because of her — and it would have been because of her, because he would never have been involved with Thanos if it wasn’t for her. But she hadn’t really thought of it in terms of breaking a promise to him before, and that, plus the look on his face right now, causes her chest to ache. 

“You were going to try to go after him yourself,” she tells him, remembering how certain she’d been in that knowledge, the reason for Peter’s direction. “And he would have killed you. I had a better chance against him than you did.”

“And yet,” Peter says simply, heavy meaning in those two simple words. 

She nods. “And yet. I wish I could tell you I will never be in danger again. But I can definitely tell you I will never have to face Thanos again. Neither of us will.”

“I know,” he says weakly. She can hardly blame him; how difficult has it been for her to truly accept that he’s gone, after all? 

“I need you to protect yourself, too,” she insists. “I can’t lose you either.” 

"I don't care about myself," says Peter, his tone half fierce, half petulant, and maybe the most desperate she's ever ever heard it. 

"You don't mean that," she says, because she doesn't want him to mean it even though she's fairly certain that he actually does. "You matter too, Peter. You matter so much to so many people."

"That's not what I mean," he insists, his voice rough now though he forces the words to keep coming. "I don't care what I mean to anybody else. Well, except you."

"Then what do you mean?" she asks, because clearly the fact that she doesn't want to lose him doesn't mean enough for him to agree with what she's saying. She is not going to get hurt by that right now, though. She is not going to get angry. What she is going to do is keep him talking, because if he does that then maybe she'll be able to figure out a way to fix this. 

"I mean -- I mean --" He makes a frustrated sound and then continues in a rush, like if he doesn't say all of the words right now, he might never get them out. "If it's between you or me, I really hope it's me next time because I _cannot_ live through losing you again. I just _can't._ "

“I don’t want to live without you either,” she says, with her own frustrated, desperate noise. And really, he is far more deserving of survival than she is. But he’s obviously gone through so much pain from being the survivor last time; is it more selfish of her to want _him_ to survive over her? 

“I know,” he chokes out, like the words are sticking to his throat as he tries to speak. His shoulders are trembling with how hard he’s struggling to hold back tears. “But Mora, I — you are — I love you too much to —” 

Finally, he can’t seem to do it anymore, either speak or hold his tears in. With a choked off gasp, he buries his face in his hands and stabs her in the heart. 

“Hey, hey,” Gamora says, moving instinctively to wrap her arms around him. “C’mere.” It’s awkward, doing it from beside him, but she tries to encourage him to lean against her. He cooperates somewhat, but he’s still stiff, still has his face in his hands, not really letting her comfort him. “Peter, I swear, I will do everything in my power to make sure neither of us ever has to go through that. Okay?” 

He doesn’t respond, and she can feel him continue to shake as he cries into his own hands. It’s like he’s ashamed of his response, or he doesn’t want to let himself be comforted. She can’t have that. 

Before she can think twice, or talk herself out of it, she says, “I love you too much to do anything less.” 

He makes a desperate, guttural noise at that, his entire body lurching with it, hard enough that she’s afraid he’s going to fall forward off the bed. Her own heart is pounding again, but she doesn’t think his response is a bad one. 

“Peter,” she coaxes, shifting so that she can rest a hand on his arm, then running it upward to rest on his wrist, right next to where his hand is concealing his face. She could easily force him to move his hands, could pry them off and make him look at her, but she wants to be gentle with him. So instead she strokes her thumb along his skin and summons every shred of her patience. “Peter, come on. Come here. Please?”

It takes him another couple of seconds, but he turns his hand over and grasps at hers with it. She slides it up from his wrist so he can grab hold of it. That seems to be all he needs, because then he’s tearing his other hand off his face and wrapping his arm around her, burying his face in her neck and sobbing even more in earnest. 

She tightens her hold on him with her other arm, and finds that it’s awkward to continue holding hands like this. She’s perfectly willing to if that’s what he wants, but he loosens his hold so he can wrap his other arm around her too, and she does the same. 

“Good,” she says softly, rocking him a bit back and forth, some deep instinct within her telling her that he needs words as well as deeds to comfort him. “Good, Peter.”

He’s crying hard, if possible even harder than before, his body wracked with sobs. It nearly makes her cry too; she wants him not to cry, but she knows that this is good for him, that he needs to let this out. Hopefully after he gets this out, he’ll feel better. Freer. 

Something in her already feels a little freer, having said the words she’s scarcely let herself think, but knows she’s felt for some time now. Now that she’s said them, and she thinks they’ve made Peter happy, despite the increase in tears, she finds it easier to say them again. “I love you.” 

“You’re back,” he gasps, after a few rough breaths. His fingers are twisted in the back of her shirt, his breath hot on her neck, and somehow all of it feels _right_. She doesn’t want to think that he’s been upset like this on many other occasions, yet she feels certain that she’s comforted him this way plenty of times before. He sniffs, his voice rumbly and broken. “You’re really back.”

“Because — I told you I love you?” she asks, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. Those pesky doubts are still there in the back of her mind, wondering whether he’s been waiting for this all along, whether he only _now_ considers her to be the real...well, _her_. The one who’s _his_. But even as her fears try to assert themselves, she can’t really believe that. She trusts Peter, and he’s told her that’s not the case. Hell, hasn’t she just been lecturing him about the fact that he almost _died_ for her? And all of that before she said these particular words.

“No,” he says vehemently, almost as if reading her mind. “No, no, I just — I’ve been so afraid to let myself believe it or feel it or — But you’re _back._ ”

“I have been back,” she tells him. She’s not being accusatory; after all, she similarly did not believe that she was the same as her past-future self at first. She thinks he probably believed it before she did, actually. But she wants him to know that she loved him before this moment, though she’s only said it aloud now. “I am back. I could never stay away from you.”

He sobs a little harder at that, and she holds onto him tighter. “I love you,” she tells him again, because she kind of enjoys saying it now that she has. More than kind of. 

“I love you, too,” he echoes, and warmth floods through her. She more-than-kind-of likes hearing it, too. 

She holds him just like that, rocking him, stroking his back, occasionally reminding him that she loves him, until his crying slows. It eventually reaches a point where they’re basically just hugging as the odd tear or two slip from his cheek and land on the collar of her shirt to join the wet spot that’s already formed there. 

He’s the first to pull back, but it’s not much; only enough so they can see each other’s faces, so he can smile at her. His cheeks and eyes are red from crying, but he looks to be in a much better state than before. “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asks softly. There’s a fresh tear sliding down his cheek that she wants to brush away, but she doesn’t want to let go of him to do it. 

He struggles to find words, maybe because his voice is still clogged with emotion or maybe just because he’s too overwhelmed to articulate his thoughts. She thinks she could easily understand either of those possibilities. He gestures against her back, apparently also not wanting to let go to free up his hands more, then huffs out a laugh at himself. “Just — being here. Being you. Taking care of me, like always.”

“And I always will,” she promises, surprised to find that those words feel natural in her mouth. Then she thinks about what got this whole conversation started, about the wounds on his back that she’s been instinctively avoiding even as she holds him. “But you have to help me with the taking care of you. Please? If you can’t do it for yourself, then at least do it for me.”

He sighs, though he only looks a bit defeated. Mainly he looks relieved, which makes _her_ feel relieved. “Damn. You know that thing about how I’ll do anything for you?”

She nods, though she had actually forgotten about that until just now. Not that she’s going to let on when it seems such a clear strategic advantage. “So you have no choice.”

“No choice,” he echoes, shaking his head.

“Good,” she says, satisfied. “Is there anything else I can do to help you right now?”

“Well,” he says slowly, twisting his lips in a thoughtful manner. “You know, you did a real good job bandaging me up.”

She gives him a skeptical look — not because she doesn’t believe him, but because she’s unsure why he’s bringing this up. “Did I?” she says when he doesn’t elaborate. 

“Yep,” he says. “I feel lots better. But do you know what would make me feel even better?” He’s trying to sound serious, she thinks, but he’s grinning in a playful way, almost goofy. That expression brings out her own smile, even though she has no idea where this is leading. She’s just relieved that he’s stopped crying. 

“What?” she asks, deciding to play along. 

“A kiss,” he says, his smile even wider. 

She arches her brow. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm,” he hums. “You’re supposed to kiss it and make it all better. It’s a thing.” 

“Am I supposed to kiss the bandage on your back?” she asks. She would be willing to if that would keep him in this happy mood, though she doesn’t understand the purpose. 

“Well, you could,” Peter says, in a way that sounds like that’s not what he actually wants. “But that would be hard. Lucky for you, there’s another way.”

“Is there?” she asks fondly. She has a feeling she knows what it is, but she wants to hear him say it. 

“Yeah,” he says, then lowers his voice like he’s letting her in on a big secret. “You can kiss me anywhere, and it’ll help heal me.”

She considers this, then kisses his cheek. “There?”

“Oh, that _did_ help,” says Peter, smiling. It’s that goofy facade again, except — Except no. She doesn’t think that this is a facade in the same way. It’s play acting for sure, but it’s genuine in a way that his deflections are not. This is part of him expressing his real, vulnerable emotions. Fortunately this one appears to be pleasant.

“But?” she prompts, because he’s still looking at her expectantly, and honestly she doesn’t want him to stop looking at her that way, at least for right now. 

“Well,” he says, “it was a pretty serious injury. So, you know, that helped but it still kinda hurts a little tiny bit.”

She arches an eyebrow. She is still worried about his injury, and she has absolutely no doubts that it’s still painful, though much improved. But she also knows that right now he’s teasing her, playing a game with her, and she likes it. This time she kisses his lips, lingering a bit longer. “How about now?”

“Well,” he says in the same tone as a moment before, “my back feels _way_ better now. But there’s another part of me that’s still wounded pretty bad.”

“And what’s that?” she prompts.

Peter waggles both eyebrows at her. “My pride.”

She actually snorts, more from that ridiculous expression than the statement, though that’s also kind of ridiculous. “Oh, really?” she asks. “And why is that?”

“Because,” he says, like it should be obvious. “My pride gets hurt when I do. Duh. It’s totally a thing.”

“You are teaching me about a lot of things today,” she informs him. 

“It’s a free service I provide for you,” he says proudly. “You’re welcome.”

“Gee, thank you,” she says, but she’s smiling, and so is he. Their faces are still pretty close together; it’s not like they’ve let go of each other this entire time. So it’s actually kind of difficult for her to resist kissing him, since it’s something she’s recently discovered that she really likes to do. So she obliges him, kissing him again like he obviously wants and she, perhaps less obviously but no less vehemently, wants as well. 

This kiss lasts longer than the one previous, and he’s slightly out of breath when they part, though she isn’t. His eyes are glassy when he slowly blinks them open at her. She can’t speak for the state of her own eyes, except that they flicker back down to his lips and they seem to have a mind of their own, because then she’s leaning back in and kissing him again without giving conscious thought to the decision. 

Peter makes a soft sound in the back of his throat that is sort of a groan but definitely not a pained one. Not a bad one at all. The kind of intimate thing he’s not even aware of doing. It makes her deepen the kiss, shifting one hand from his shoulder into his hair. He reacts to that with his whole body, and she’s reminded suddenly of the way he’d melted into the mattress the last time she’d touched his hair. She runs her fingers through it experimentally, pulling him closer and shifting on the mattress.

She isn’t quite sure how it happens, but they keep moving together, keep kissing and balancing and re-balancing. The next thing she knows, she’s lying back on the bed with Peter half on top of her. She still has her fingers wound into his hair and they are still kissing, though now it’s more frantic than sweet, more desperate than comforting. Breaking away from her lips, Peter turns his attention to her neck and she rolls her head back without even thinking about what she’s doing, about the fact that she’s baring her throat to him. She runs her free hand along his side and suddenly she’s very aware of just how much of his bare skin is in her field of vision, is pressed up against her. 

His skin is warm, now that he feels better and he’s not clammy anymore. It feels nice and smooth as she moves her hand over the places on his back that aren’t covered by gauze, and the muscles underneath are firm, the weight of him pressed against her is solid and makes her feel warmer in a way that’s not just because he’s basically being a blanket right now. She suddenly wishes that she wasn’t wearing a shirt either, so she could feel more of his skin against hers. 

His beard is scratching against her neck as he kisses it, but it feels good, and it’s threatening to tear a noise out of her throat that she has to press her lips together to suppress. Peter has no such qualms; when she scrapes her nails against his scalp, he lets out a sort of deep, grunty noise against her skin that makes something in her abdomen tighten and warm. 

Suddenly overwhelmed with the need to kiss him again, she nudges her head with her own so he’ll tilt it up and she can capture his lips again. It helps her to keep those noises her body wants to make at bay, though it’s still a difficult task, much harder than she would have expected it to be. She’s been trained to be stealthy and quiet, to keep total control of her body, but all that seems to have disappeared. 

Peter seems to feel an equal need to be touching her, to keep shifting and changing so that they keep as much contact as possible. Now that she’s kissing his lips again, he curls his fingers into her hair, stroking back through it in a way that’s somehow simultaneously both reverent and charged with the taut electricity that’s crackling between them. It distracts her from any modicum of control and the next thing she knows, she’s gasping against his lips, making little noises of her own. For all her concern about control, she finds that she suddenly doesn’t care, just needs him to not stop what he’s doing. 

Peter slips his other hand down between them, his fingers toying with the hem of her shirt where it’s riding up. She hasn’t even been thinking about that, about the fact that it’s exposing more than a little bit of her silver, but then again, why shouldn’t he see it? Why shouldn’t he touch it? Almost as if reading her thoughts, he strokes his fingers along the skin there, making a pleasant chill rock through her body. He makes a pleased sound against her lips and does it again.

Gamora wonders briefly if this is what it was like the _first_ first time, when they had moved so quickly, when she had been more than ready to let all of her walls come down. She’s aware that they’re headed in that direction again right now, and she can’t bring herself to care that — 

The ship rocks abruptly with a dull thud, and she has a moment of panic before remembering that she’s felt this before, that it happens when Rocket docks too rapidly with the Quadrant. 

Peter curses softly, turning his head to look out the port window on the side of the room. Gamora follows his gaze and finds confirmation that they are indeed docked in the Quadrant now. 

And just like that, the moment is broken and reality comes crashing back in on her. The others are going to wonder where they are if they don’t get off the Benatar with them. Plus, her need to go slow has not disappeared, was simply swept away in the moment. Is Peter going to think she’s a hypocrite now? For telling him she needs to go slow and then doing something like this? 

“Sorry,” he says with a grimace. She wonders if he’s thinking along the same lines as her. He’s still on top of her, though it’s not like she’s let go of him, either. Their hands are still on each other, tangled in each other’s hair. 

She finally makes herself move her hands off of him and says, “We should probably go.”

“Right, yeah,” Peter says, sounding awkward, though not as awkward as she feels. He pushes himself up so he’s sitting back on his heels, giving her enough room to pull herself up as well, avoiding his eyes all the while, sure that she’s blushing deeply. She carefully pulls the hem of her shirt back down to cover her silver skin. 

“Hey,” he says, in a soft voice that makes her look up at him despite herself. He’s leaning close to her, and he carefully tucks his finger under her chin and kisses her very lightly on the lips. She doesn’t know why a kiss like that should make her feel better, but it does somehow. 

They should talk about this, she knows. She wants to ignore everything outside of this room and talk to him, or just continue what they were doing, consequences be damned. But she can already hear the sounds of the others disembarking, and arguing about who knows what as they do. 

“Let’s go,” she says, despite her wishes, and forces herself up off the bed. 

“Right,” she hears Peter say, but she doesn’t look back at him as she leaves the room, just trusts that he’s going to follow.


	30. Chapter 30

Being back on Xandar feels strange to Gamora, though not necessarily in a bad way. 

Actually, definitely not in a bad way. It’s been strange the last two times, too, though moreso the first one, with the surreality of walking into the Nova Corps headquarters and seeing her own memorial, of being treated like a hero when she had felt so much like anything but. 

They’re currently waiting in the same briefing room where they’d met with Nova Prime way back then, where she’d shown Gamora the biometric scans of her current self and her past-future one; where she had been unable to believe that she could ever be the same person. She can’t help wondering now what it would look like, whether her newly-acquired memories would be somehow visible. But finding out would require her to mention those memories in front of the rest of the team, which she still has not done and doesn’t think she’s ready to do.

It feels vulnerable enough sitting next to Peter, thinking about the way it had felt to have him on top of her, the way his flushed skin had felt under her fingers, the way she had wanted to — Well, it’s probably a good thing that nobody is projecting her neural activity right now because there’s definitely a few parts of her brain that would be lit up like a supernova. 

She’s almost grateful that the others are being their usual, unruly selves. It’s a good distraction. 

“See?” Rocket is saying to Corman, standing on a chair with his arms crossed so he can be closer to his height as they argue. “This is why I didn’t wanna show up so early! Now we’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes!”

“It has been five minutes at most,” Corman replies cooly. He’s standing with his hands held behind his back, posture stiff and at the ready, despite the fact that there’s a chair available for him. “And we were not early, we arrived precisely on time.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Rocket says. “And where is Dey? Twenty freakin’ minutes late.”

“It is only seven minutes past the time of our scheduled meeting,” Drax says. Then he frowns. “And I’m hungry. We must cut the meeting seven minutes short so we can eat on time.”

“I brought you a snack,” Mantis says, handing him a small bag of his favorite, repulsive chips, which he takes and begins eating enthusiastically. Gamora wrinkles her nose at the smell of them, though they’re nowhere near as bad as anything on Maliv. 

“I am Groot,” Groot says, as usual not looking up from his game. 

“Time is meaningless?” Rocket repeats, giving him a look. “What, are you a philosopher all the sudden?” 

Groot shrugs and sticks out his tongue. “I am _Groot._ ”

“He is a tree,” says Drax, his mouth full of chips. 

“I sort of agree with him,” says Gamora, partly because she feels the urge to defend Groot, but partly also because that statement about time fits pretty well with the train of thought she’s just been following. 

“That he is a tree?” asks Drax. “He is obviously — “

“That time is meaningless,” Gamora interrupts. “Considering what we’ve all just been through, what we have seen of time — “ She isn’t quite sure where she’s going with that, is dimly aware of the way Peter is looking at her. She isn’t sure, suddenly, whether she might want to share some of the strangeness of her situation with the others, whether it might be — ironically, well, time. She doesn’t get the chance to make that decision, though.

“Hey, Dey!” Rocket calls out, as he finally comes in, looking harried. “Look, we found your man, dragged him out o’ the trash heap and brought him back just like we said! Corman the Corps Man who royally screwed up his mission!”

“I will not tolerate being called that,” says Corman. “And I did not _screw up_ the mission in the slightest. I made an intentional strategic —” 

“We’ll get to that,” says Dey, running a hand through his hair. “We’ll get to all of that. But can we all just — settle down for a minute here?”

“Have you met us?” asks Nebula, smirking.

He has both hands pressed to his temples now and Gamora feels pity for him, but he really should be used to this kind of thing by now. This is far from the worst this group has ever acted in public in just the past month or so. They’re not even throwing things. 

“C’mon, guys,” Peter says. It would appear that he’s taking pity on Dey, but he’s also smirking. “Dey obviously wants us to be quiet so he can express his gratitude that we saved the corpsman in distress.”

“I was not in distress!” Corman argues, sounding very much like Groot when he gets petulant. Gamora gets a sudden image of a smaller Groot stamping his foot and demanding candy, but it comes quick and fades quicker, and she can’t be sure it was real. 

“You are welcome!” Mantis says sincerely. 

“You were literally imprisoned on a hostile planet,” Nebula tells Corman, unimpressed with his argument. “How is that not in distress?”

“I had the situation completely under control,” Corman says primly. “And I was able to ascertain the whereabouts of two innocent people also imprisoned and—”

“Yes, I got all that from your message,” Dey says, cutting him off. Corman appears miffed at being interrupted, but doesn’t say anything, presumably because Dey outranks him. “Which, by the way--who wrote that thing?”

“I did!” Mantis says, raising her hand enthusiastically. 

Dey assumes his ‘dealing with Mantis’ face and presses his lips together; Gamora can surmise that he was about to make some negative comments about the message, but is now hesitating because it was Mantis who wrote it. Gamora does have to wonder why the team so often leaves Mantis in charge of communication, when she doesn’t appear very adept at it. 

“Well,” says Dey, scratching at his earlobe in what appears to Gamora to be yet another tell that he’s tired and stressed, “I’ll give you this: It was more informative than your last message for sure.”

Drax frowns, still crunching chips. There are a truly horrifying amount of chips contained in the relatively small packet.“What was our last message?”

Peter sighs. “The one where she pretty much said ‘we got kidnapped, talk to you later’ and gave Dey an aneurysm. Honestly, we probably should invest in something for his blood pressure now that we’re all back.”

“I am not sharing my Asgardian mead,” says Nebula, though from her smirk, Gamora thinks she might be considering it. She is fairly certain that her sister is currently imagining what Dey would be like intoxicated to oblivion. Then again, maybe she had the chance to observe something of that sort after the snap.

“Oh!” cries Mantis, clapping her hands together excitedly, her antennae bobbing around as she practically bounces in her seat, “I am always striving for improvement!”

“That’s what we love about you,” Peter assures her. “That and the fact that you’re a badass who took out like two dozen guards all by yourself.”

Corman throws up his hands. “Really, could you not spare anyone else for this mission, Dey? The Nova Corps must be in a more desperate way than I had realized.”

“Hey!” Rocket says, his tail literally bristling. “We rescued your sorry ass, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, arms crossed over his chest. “And now I’m starting to regret it.”

“ _Starting_ to?” Rocket snorts. “I’ve regretted it from the beginning.”

“We will be happy to leave you trapped next time,” Nebula drawls, “if you are so picky about your rescuers.”

“Guys, guys,” Dey says, holding out both hands as if to ward out an actual, physical fight. Which, judging by Rocket’s posture, isn’t completely out of the question. “Please, just be professionals. _All_ of you.” He levels a glare at Corman, who immediately re-assumes his stiff, at the ready posture. 

Gamora had also bristled at Corman’s words, though not literally as Rocket had, but Dey looks so haggard that she’s willing to put that aside. The others all remain pretty tense, aside from Mantis, who appears to be oblivious to the meaning of Corman’s comment, and Drax, who Gamora is willing to bet was not listening at all, but they at least cease their insults. 

“Thank you,” Dey says with a tired sigh. “We can discuss the rescue mission at length later. For now, I need to know what you learned about the Sons.”

Corman somehow manages to stand even straighter, head tilted high as he prepares to launch into his explanation. 

“Oh, great,” Peter mutters, quietly enough that Gamora’s pretty sure it’s only meant for her to hear. “As if we haven’t listened to him talk enough.” 

Gamora looks at him sideways, just a flick of her eyes without moving her head. He’s smirking at her, more entertained by this situation than as annoyed as he’s pretending to be. Also, she’s relieved to see that the humor actually reaches his eyes, that the release he managed earlier still seems to be helping him. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and his grin widens.

“As you know,” Corman begins, “I was dispatched to go undercover as a weapons expert so that the Sons of Thanos would — “

“Yes,” Dey interrupts, running a hand through his hair again. “I am _very_ familiar with the details of your mission, seeing as how I’m the one who gave you the assignment. Now will you please get to what you learned about the Sons? If, in fact, there is anything like you said there was?” He also has a ‘dealing with Corman’ face, Gamora is delighted to realize. And it’s nowhere near as affectionate as his ‘dealing with Mantis’ or even his ‘dealing with Drax’ faces. That makes her feel an odd sense of pride. It’s nice to realize that someone in a position of power like Dey respects and cares about her strange little family.

Corman doesn’t seem to be overly fond, judging by his perturbed expression. 

“He looks like he smelled one of Drax’s farts,” Peter whispers to her, and she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She elbows him in the arm, very lightly, still mindful of the fact that he hurt himself just a few hours ago. She sees his grin out of the corner of her eye. 

“Well, I discovered that they act as a hive mind —” Corman begins. 

“Ehhhhh!” Rocket says, making a loud, honking sort of noise to interrupt him. “We already discovered that, moron! What else ya got?”

“Did you actually accomplish _anything_ on this mission?” Nebula asks. Gamora recognizes the dark amusement in her sister’s voice. 

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “I thought you said this mission wasn’t a complete waste. Was that just a bluff? Did you only find out stuff we already knew?”

Corman glares at him, and Gamora’s half-tempted to put a protective arm in front of Peter; not that she thinks Corman would hurt him, but she doesn’t like anybody looking at him like that. Even if he is being kind of obnoxious. 

“I got a tracker on their ship,” Corman says tersely. ‘Did you manage to do _that_?” 

“You what?” Nebula snaps. “Why would you not lead with that? We’ve been trying to track these bastards the whole time!”

“Excellent!” Dey says, before Corman can reply. He’s already at the holo terminal, and Gamora gets another flash of Nova Prime using it to show her the scans of herself. “What’s the code? Let’s figure out where they are!”

“Well,” says Corman, sounding a bit chagrined now. “That is somewhat complicated.”

“How is it complicated?” asks Rocket, apparently unable to withstand the temptation to goad Corman. Not that Corman is helping himself avoid it at the moment. “You placed the tracker, you just said you placed the tracker. You’re one of the Nova Corps’s best officers, right? So surely you know the code. You’re too good to just put in a tracker and then forget to make note of the code, right?” 

“There is no precise code,” says Corman, pressing his lips together for a moment before he continues. “Because I did not — _place_ a tracker per se.”

“Dude, you just said you placed a tracker,” says Peter, shaking his head. He sounds equal parts gratified at Corman’s discomfort and disappointed that they might not actually be any closer to finding the Sons.

“I did not say I the tracker,” Corman insists. 

“Who said what?” asks Drax, blinking.

“I did not have a tracker with me,” says Corman. “So I didn’t so much place one as sabotage the ship’s communications array to emit signals that we should be able to trace.”

“That was quick thinking,” Dey says, giving Corman an approving nod. “Very smart. Good work.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Peter mutters. “I totally would’ve thought of that if we hadn’t had to make such a quick escape.” Gamora is pretty sure that’s him admitting that it’s true. It definitely was smart, but Corman is already standing up straighter than she’d previously thought possible, so she doesn’t feel the need to say this out loud to add to his sense of pride. 

“Would’ve been smarter to just bring a tracker in the first place,” Rocket says, not as quietly. 

Corman is still too busy glowing at Dey’s comment to respond. Gamora would never tell Peter this, because she doesn’t think he’d take kindly to being compared to Corman, but that look reminds her of the way Peter grins in response to genuine praise. 

“It will only work when they send communications out,” Corman says. “So we will need to find the frequency and monitor it.”

“How long will that take?” Mantis asks curiously. 

“I do not know,” Corman admits. “A matter of days, perhaps. It depends on how often they send out communications.”

“Great,” Nebula says sarcastically. “So now we have to wait around some more until we can find them, just like we were already doing. Sounds like we’re way ahead.”

“We are much closer than we were before,” Gamora points out. “And we have a solution.” 

“Yeah,” Peter says, a lot perkier than he was before. She’s noticed how he tends to suddenly look on things a lot more favorably after she’s expressed approval of them. It threatens to make her smile. “We’re close now!” 

“We do not know where they are,” says Drax, predictably. Gamora has that odd sense of deja vu again — She can’t quite place the specifics of the memory, can’t come up with any words or images of Drax, though she knows he’s at the root of it. What she _can_ picture is the exact way Peter is going to be looking at her, with that pained yet amused smile he seems to use only in silent commiseration with her.

When she glances over at him she finds exactly what she was expecting, and it makes her heart flutter strangely. When she’d first found herself in this...well, future, with this group claiming to know and love at least one version of her, it had felt like so many pieces of her life were a puzzle. Now the edges are beginning to fit together.

“Yes, that is what I just said,” Corman tells Drax. “That we do not know where they are right now, which is why I turned their communications array into a tracker, but we will have to wait for — “

“Oh I heard that,” Drax interrupts. “But apparently Quill did not, because he said we are close when in fact we do not know where the Sons of Thanos are. I was correcting him.”

Peter groans and tilts his head back in utter exasperation. “I meant clos _er_ , then, dude.”

“Then why did you not just say that?” Drax asks, genuinely perplexed. Gamora almost laughs. 

“I am Groot,” Groot points out. Gamora pretty much always understands him now, and believes this statement translates to: _Gamora said it right before that, dummy._ He often seems most willing to speak when it involves arguing with or insulting Drax. Or both. 

“I did not hear that part,” Drax says easily. 

“She said it right before Peter!” Mantis supplies helpfully. 

“Do you need us for anything else?” Gamora asks Dey quickly, before Mantis and Drax can rehash the entirety of the conversation. 

Dey shakes his head. “Thank you, really. It means a lot to us here to know that we can count on you all. We’ll let you know when we find the location of the Sons.” 

Corman purses his lips, appearing displeased that they are all to continue being involved in this mission. Gamora isn’t exactly looking forward to working with him again either, but he’s certainly a lot better than the people she was forced to work with for the majority of her life before this. She can deal with a little arrogance. 

“You’re welcome!” Rocket says, very proudly, grinning smugly at Corman. 

And it’s not like she’s not dealing with more than a little arrogance with her team now, Gamora thinks, though it’s mostly fond. 

“Does this mean we can eat now?” Drax asks, as they begin to get up from their chairs. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter says with a sigh. “You haven’t eaten in a whole hour.” 

“Hey,” Rocket says, turning back to Dey. “Do you give out rewards for side jobs performed on missions? Because Corman here had us--”

“Enough,” Nebula says with an eye-roll. She ushers him out, and the others follow, Rocket half-heartedly protesting the whole way to dinner.

* * *

Peter is taking a shower. 

That fact in itself is nothing new. They’ve both used the big, luxurious bathroom plenty of times since returning to their true quarters on the Quadrant. Gamora is even starting to get used to the large mirror, the lovely scents of the candles, using some of the products that are — well, hers from a time that she doesn’t remember. She hasn’t used the bathtub yet, because that feels too...significant, is the word. Too significant to do by herself for the first time. 

Still, the point is, she has taken showers in their shared bathroom. Peter has taken showers in their shared bathroom. She has even had plenty of other times like this where she’s waited for him, sitting on the edge of their bed or at the vanity, listening to the water run, and she hasn’t had any particular thoughts about it. 

Tonight, though...Tonight is the night of the day that involved Peter nearly getting himself killed on her behalf. Also the night of the day that involved Peter, shirtless, kissing her and — and tonight she has the holo out, idly scrolling through pictures and trying to convince herself that she is _not_ looking for the ones of him decidedly more than just shirtless. She is _not_. They just...happen to be in the album she’s opened completely by coincidence. And now that she’s opened it, she has to go through it, right? That is what one does when one is looking at pictures.

And when one happens upon pictures that are...well, aesthetically pleasing, then one should click on them to enlarge them and better appreciate their beauty. Not that she has a ton of experience or memory of looking through pictures, but she clearly did, or at least Peter did, or else these albums wouldn’t exist. And she _did_ take this picture, so really it’s only right that she look at it when she does come across it, her heart skipping a beat as if she’s surprised to find it here, though she’s not. 

It’s only right that she look at the muscles of his shoulders and back, how strong and firm they look. She can clearly imagine the way they feel under her hands now, having touched his bare back just earlier that day. Not all of it, true, since a large part of it was covered in gauze, but she still has plenty of knowledge to fill in the gaps. 

She can less clearly imagine what other parts of him might feel like under her hands, but that doesn’t stop her brain from attempting to as her eyes follow the line of his back down to the curve of his ass, which he’s so proudly displaying in the picture. It also looks strong and firm, and try as she might to tear her eyes from it, they seem glued to the spot. 

She imagines what it must have felt like to take these pictures, to be so comfortable with him. To be so comfortable with _herself_ and her feelings for him, too. To not worry that...what, exactly? She can’t quite articulate her need to move slowly with him, at least in the physical sense. It isn’t like she thinks that Peter is going to take advantage of her or force her into anything that she doesn’t want — and she _does_ want it, she’s becoming more aware every moment that they’re together. 

But it still feels like too much, somehow — maybe because she’s afraid that she’ll disappoint him by failing to remember how to do everything at once, or maybe it’s just _such_ a vulnerable thing, loving him so much in the face of all the loss, all the pain and fear that her life has been so far. Or maybe it’s just that she wants it to feel intentional, wants it to be a choice — not only _to_ have sex with him, but when and how as well. Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t want it to be rushed, doesn’t want it to feel like a knee-jerk reaction to thoughts of danger or loss.

And yet even as she has these thoughts, her body is _still_ acting on instinct, in a way. Abruptly, she catches herself running her free hand along the silver-tinged skin of her abdomen, sinking a bit lower with each pass. 

She pulls her hand away as if her warm skin has actually burned her, and quickly casts her eyes to the bathroom door, fearful. Thankfully, Peter hasn’t magically sensed her wayward thoughts and come out. She can still hear the shower running, so he must still be in it, and some of the tension in her shoulders eases. 

She looks back at the picture in front of her, determined to minimize it and put the holo away. But now she can’t help imagining him in the shower as she looks at the picture, thinking about the way lines of water must be running down these parts of him, carried from his shoulders down to the small of his back and lower... The water would make his hair stick to his forehead, and he’d be rubbing soap on his chest, and lower too. 

He must have trouble reaching his back, she thinks. He might need help with that. For a wild moment, she’s tempted to go in there and help him out, and in that moment she gets a flash of memory, of a time when she did just that. The bathroom was fogged up with steam from the shower, and she was already undressed. She was greeted with a smile when she stepped in the shower and he handed her the soap. She washed his back for him and then he turned around and took her in his arms and kissed her with their whole bodies pressed up against each other, wet and slippery and naked. 

Then it had become about more than just showering, she thinks. She can picture the rest of his body now, not just what’s revealed in the pictures on the holo, and this _must_ be a memory because it isn’t like she’s ever seen a naked Terran in any other context before. Part of her wants nothing more than to let the memory absorb her attention fully, reveal all its details to her, remind her what it was like to be _with_ him, to touch him in -- 

“Gamora?” Peter’s voice comes through the bathroom door, jarring her out of her thoughts. Abruptly, she realizes that she can’t hear the water running anymore, and that he sounds like he’s speaking from very close to the door itself, where the barrier between the two rooms is the thinnest.

Gamora scrambles to sit up, flushing in embarrassment though there’s still no way that he can see her, no way that he can know what she’s just been doing and thinking. She tugs her shirt down into place, arranges her waistband so that it obscures her silver, and powers off the holo so fast that she has to turn it back on again so that picture won’t be the first thing that pops up the next time anyone uses it.

“Gamora, are you there?” he calls again, sounding sort of tentative himself.

“Yeah--yes!” she says quickly. She actually stands up now, even though he still can’t see her, to distance herself from the holo, as if her mere proximity to it will give away what she was looking at. 

“I left my clothes out there,” Peter says from behind the door. “Can you, uh, hand them to me?” 

“Oh,” she says. She finds them immediately, his customary pajamas of a t-shirt and boxers sitting on top of the dresser. She wonders how she didn’t notice them there before; then her eyes drift against her will to the now dark holo. 

“Sure,” she says, when she realizes that wasn’t actually an answer. She hurries to grab the clothes, because it’s a simple request and it should not take her this long to process what he’s asking and do it. 

The bathroom door cracks open and Peter’s head and bare shoulder pop out, along with his arm. He’s hiding the rest of himself behind the door, but she can see the drops of water beading along his collarbone, one of them making its way down his chest. She can even make out the edge of a towel tied around his waist. She thinks about the contrast between this and what she just remembered, a time when he didn’t hide any of himself, when she’d seen _all_ of him. 

It takes monumental self control for her to force her eyes to his face as she holds out the clothing to him. She can feel even more heat flood to her cheeks. 

He flushes too, and suddenly she can’t help wondering why he didn’t just come out in his towel to grab the clothes himself. Was it because he somehow knew, or guessed, that she was doing something she’d be embarrassed to be caught at? Was he worried that he might see something that would...perhaps disgust or disappoint him? _Or_ is it that _he_ was having similar thoughts, similar memories brought up by the shower and their earlier...what even was that? He would use the words _making out_ , she thinks -- no, _knows_ instinctively -- but that doesn’t feel like a term that she can apply to herself either. So, perhaps he was in the shower remembering the same sort of things she has been, but perhaps for him it’s painful, a reminder of what he’s lost, what she’s not able -- no, not _ready_ to offer him yet.

“Gamora?” he asks softly, his tone gentle, warm. 

She shakes herself, forcing herself to meet his eyes again. “What?”

“Can I have my clothes?”

She realizes abruptly that she’s still holding the clothes she’s brought over for him, her hand closed around one side of the pile and his on the other. She is holding his _underwear_ as if it’s a possession she has some claim on. She snatches her hand back as if the fabric has burned her, which causes Peter to nearly drop the things in surprise.

He manages to catch them before they hit the ground, but in his fumbling, he’s come farther out from behind the door, pretty much making it pointless that he asked her to give him his clothes in the first place. 

There’s a few more drops of water on the newly exposed parts of him, on the other side of his chest. The way he turned to grab for the clothes brought his other shoulder into view too, but not all the way; she’s struck not for the first time by how broad his shoulders are. Plus, the towel he’s wearing is tied really low on his hips. She can see a trail of hair beginning above it, leading down to -- 

Her eyes snap back up to his face when she realizes she’s let them drift down again. She finds him smirking at her, and there’s no way he doesn’t know what distracted her. Is it possible for her to blush any more? She’s not sure, but if it is, she’s managing it. 

“Sorry,” she says, then clears her throat, trying to sound less guilty. “About--the clothes.”

“It’s no problem,” Peter says. He’s shifted back more behind the door, but he’s still smirking at her. Damn the man. “Sorry for forgetting them. I’ll, uh, be right out.” 

She forces herself not to watch as he goes back into the bathroom and closes the door. When she hears the click of the door shutting, she lets out a breath and briefly buries her face in her hands. She’s never felt so...out of sorts. At least not in this way, that she can remember. She wonders if it was like this for her the first time around too, or if this strange, awkward, almost-burning feeling is new. 

Then again, maybe she didn’t have time for that before. If they moved quickly, jumped into things, maybe she didn’t have the opportunity to deny herself, to _want_ him. She’s pretty sure that isn’t true, though. Partly because she remembers how she’d felt that day they’d danced together, how much she’d been in love with him and how scared she’d been to admit it. And also because she’s increasingly sure that she _is_ that same person, truly, so doesn’t it only stand to reason that she’s felt these things before? 

She’s had plenty of experience wanting things in her life -- food, clothes of her own choosing, a blanket, a _home._ Really, she’s spent more time feeling deprived in one way or another than not, and yet -- _And yet_ , for all of the wonderful things that she has in her life now, this feels different. Bigger. 

“So, it turns out I need your help with something else, too,” says Peter, emerging from the bathroom with a bit of a sheepish smile, breaking into her reverie again. At least he’s not smirking anymore, because it’s clear that now he’s the one in a vulnerable position, somehow even more vulnerable than when he’d been in nothing but a towel.

He’s just in his boxers right now, which cover even less than the towel did, but somehow feel a little less intimate, at least to her. Perhaps because she has seen him in boxers before, considering it’s what he sleeps in, although that’s usually accompanied by a t-shirt. He’s currently clutching that in his hand instead of wearing it, though, and when he turns a little, it becomes apparent why. 

The burns on his back are all exposed. The bandages either fell off in the shower or he took them off himself; presumably the latter, considering how careful she was in putting them on. 

“The bandages got wet,” Peter says, confirming her theory. “So I took ‘em off. But I didn’t think I’d be able to get new ones on myself.” He lets out a bashful sort of laugh. “Plus, there weren’t any in there.” 

“Right,” Gamora says. “Of course.” She’s managed to forget about his wound too, which is insane, she thinks. He’d injured himself earlier that day -- though thanks to the different day cycles of the ship and the two planets they’ve been on today, she’s not actually sure how long it’s been. 

But still. “I’ll grab a first aid kit,” she says, moving towards the door. But Peter stops her after only one step. 

“We keep one in here,” he informs her. “You know, cause I tend to need it.” He goes to the closet and she definitely does not stare at him or the way the muscles in his shoulders move as he stretches to reach the kit on a shelf in the closet. 

“That is smart,” she makes herself say. She also makes herself take it from him and move back over to the bed with it, because somehow it feels even odder to consider doing this anywhere else in the room, like at her vanity. He’s already moving in that direction too, a bit ahead of her because he’s not making any effort to keep pace and his stride is so much longer. 

“Oh, careful,” he says, when they both reach the bed and she goes to put the kit down. She realizes abruptly that she’s left the holo on the bed and let it get lost in the sheets, then very nearly set the first aid kit on top of it. 

“Oh,” she says uselessly, and then can’t find anything else to say as Peter scoops up the holo and moves it to the bedside table. She feels an odd sense of shame about that once again, like touching it is going to somehow give him a vision of what _she_ was thinking about while looking at -- 

“I was reading!” she says abruptly, then curses herself for the lie that is probably incredibly obvious to him. Still, she’s committed to it now and changing her statement would just make things even worse. Even weirder. “About -- things.” Excellent. Very convincing, if she wants him to think that she is an empty-headed idiot.

“Oh,” says Peter, sitting on the edge of the bed and offering her that familiar gentle smile. “Well that’s good. Things are important.”

“Yes,” she says stiffly. “The most important thing right now is re-covering this burn.” She sits next to him, not as close as she has been; the closer she is to him, the more she seems to heat up and blush. It’s strange. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter says obediently, turning so that he’s facing away from her, his legs crossed on the bed rather than hanging off the edge of it, so she doesn’t have to crawl around behind him to access his back. “Is that what you were reading about?” 

“No,” she says, not wanting to lie any more than she already has, but not offering any further details either. 

“Okay,” he says easily, still with that gentle voice that’s making her feel even guiltier than she already does. It doesn’t help that of course she’s now inches away from his back, and though it’s covered in a burn -- that has healed a little since earlier today -- she can still see the strong muscles that she was so enamored with in the picture. So now she’s staring, and she was staring at that picture of him earlier, and she lied to him about what she was doing on the holo, and here he is being so sweet and nice to her even though he has to know that she’s lying. 

She makes herself focus on the task at hand, applying more salve to his burns and then laying gauze gently on top of it, sticking it down with all the care and precision he deserves. Then, remembering what he’d said about kissing it to make it all better, she gently presses her lips to the bandage when she’s done. 

He shudders under her, makes a soft sound at that press of her lips. It’s a vulnerable thing, the sound of breath catching in his throat, of it growing tight with emotions. She’s reminded suddenly of the way he’d cried earlier, the desperation, the pain, and also the relief. Suddenly feeling an even stronger urge to care for him, she kisses the spot again and rests both hands on his shoulders, running them down his arms. Peter exhales a shaky breath and leans back a bit farther. 

Gamora doesn’t want to put pressure on his wounds, so she keeps her hands where they are and instead presses her lips to the nape of his neck. She keeps her lips in one spot for several breaths, listening to his heartbeat as it speeds up and slows down again, speeds and then slows. Gaining confidence, she moves up higher, pausing instinctively at a spot behind his ear. She brushes her lips over it lightly at first, then with a bit more pressure, one of those movements that _feels_ right, even though she can’t picture a full memory with it. As soon as she does, she knows why -- it’s like the first time that she touched his hair. Peter makes more than a soft noise, exhales an actual _moan_ , the kind of sound she was just remembering in her vision of the shower. 

Something comes over her, like everything has slipped from her mind and the only thing that matters is Peter and getting as close to him as possible. She gently grabs his arm to urge him to twist around and he does. She doesn’t even wait for him to fully turn towards her -- she can’t _possibly_ make herself wait that long -- just kisses his lips the second his face is close enough. 

He lets out another delightful moan against her mouth as they deepen the kiss almost immediately. They don’t separate even for a second as he adjusts himself to be sitting facing her; in fact, they get even closer. That’s not nearly enough for her, though. She scrambles to get closer to him, pulled by some instinct, and ends up practically in his lap, one leg thrown over his. 

This is _definitely_ what Peter would call making out, if possible even more intense than the first time she had tended to his burn. She’s stroking her hand up his side, from shoulder to hip, and he’s got one of his own making its way up the back of her shirt, causing her to shiver pleasantly. She’s about two seconds away from just ripping her own shirt off when Peter suddenly pulls back with a gasp. 

“Mora, wait I--” he says, panting, “We should--talk, probably?” 

“Oh,” she breathes, freezing. She feels a rush of the same hot shame she felt earlier, when she’d looked at the holo, when he’d called her name from inside the bathroom, and when she’d lied about reading something on the holonet. Only now it’s even more intense, because everything that came before was subtle, relatively hidden from him. But this -- This is on a whole other level. She’s overstepped entirely, taken advantage of those half-memories of his body and the ways it responds. And it feels disingenuous no matter how she looks at it, because even if he _does_ see her as the same person she has always been, didn’t she _just_ get done telling him how she wanted to take things slow, how she didn’t want to lead him on?

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, scrambling off of his lap so quickly that she nearly falls over the opposite edge of the bed. 

“Whoa, careful!” says Peter, catching her arm, though she doesn’t actually need his help regaining her balance and righting herself on the bed. “And you don’t have to be sorry at all. I just -- You said you wanted to go slow, and I’m -- you know, not always the best at knowing what that means. And I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

She swallows, hesitant to allow herself to calm and to stop worrying, though he seems to be implying that she didn’t hurt him or otherwise overstep. “Do you...have any regrets about this?” she asks, not knowing what she’ll do if the answer is yes. 

“No!” he says vehemently. He’s still got his hand on her arm and now he slips it down to grasp hers. “None at all. But I would if we did something you didn’t wanna do, or if _you_ had regrets later. I told you before, I want whatever you want. And I meant it. I’m just trying to figure out what that is.” 

He looks so sincere, and confused, that it sends another bolt of guilt through her despite the fact that his aim is to do the opposite. 

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “For confusing you. I know I said I wanted to go slow and then I...well, this.” She gestures to him in all his shirtlessness, as if there is evidence on his body of what they just did. And, well, maybe there is, in the muss of his hair, the flush on his cheeks, the way his heart rate and breathing are still slightly faster than normal. 

“I also meant it when I said you don’t have to be sorry,” he tells her. “You’re not…” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and she waits in suspense. “It’s not like there’s a set course or whatever, or an agenda or order of events that things have to happen at a _going slow_ pace, you know?” 

“No,” says Gamora, allowing herself to feel frustrated for a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t -- know anything about any of this. I don’t know how.”

“Hey,” he says gently, reaching out and tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, perfectly chaste and with that same surprising reverence she so often finds him showing toward her. It makes her throat grow tight as always, makes water gather and sting at the backs of her eyes. She can hear it in his voice, too, as he continues. “Is that what you’re afraid of? Not -- knowing how?”

Gamora sets her jaw, her defenses kicking in reflexively even though she doesn’t want them to. Even though right now, she would so much rather be vulnerable with him, the way he seems to have absolutely no problem doing with her. She wonders whether he’s always been that way with her, and somehow thinks that he must have been. And then she responds defensively anyway, because she is a weak idiot behind her own powerful, stubborn facade. “What makes you think that I am afraid of anything?”

He would have every right to get frustrated with her now, to snap or yell or call her a fraud. Instead he just smiles, a little sad but still a lot warm. “Because I know you, Gamora. I might not be able to hear your heartbeat, but I can still tell.”

“I am not afraid,” she says stubbornly, but not very convincing with the way her voice is choked. She clears her throat, desperate to get that wobble out of it. “I am...apprehensive.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with being apprehensive,” Peter says, generously using her word. But then he frowns. “Did I do something to make you feel that way?”

“No!” she says quickly. As much as she doesn’t want to admit her fears -- or the things she’s _apprehensive_ about -- she can’t have Peter thinking he did anything wrong. She takes a breath, gathering herself. “It's just...you know everything about me. You know what it’s like to… _do_ this with me. You know what I like, and I don’t know what you like. I don’t even know what _I_ like.” 

She’s been determinedly meeting his gaze during her entire little speech, but now that she’s done she finds herself faltering, staring at a spot on his collarbone instead of his eyes. Irritatingly, despite her embarrassment and apprehension, she still finds that collarbone and the rest of him quite attractive. 

“Gamora,” he says gently, his hand that’s been hovering near her cheek gravitating towards her chin to gently coax her to look up at him again. “I like everything you do. We’ll go slow and you’ll re-learn. You’ll see that you’re great at this.” 

She sighs, wanting to meet his eyes, wanting to accept the kindness that he’s showing her. Which, really, is what’s drawing her in despite her reservations, despite her fears. How can she _not_ love him when he is so -- like this?

“I don’t feel very great at anything right now,” she admits, finally looking at him.

“Well hey,” says Peter, “that’s not true. And I don’t just mean -- you know, stuff that you haven’t remembered being great at yet. I mean -- Just a few weeks ago, you were telling me that you didn’t know how to take care of me when I was hurt or upset. And now, look how good you did today.”

Gamora pauses, taken aback. He’s right, she knows. She can’t deny how uncomfortable, how lost she’d felt that first time -- within memory -- that she’d dressed his wounds, that she’d comforted him as he’d cried. And today it had felt -- well, maybe not quite _natural_ , but certainly instinctive. 

“You know I’m right,” he says, with a cajoling smile. He even nudges her side with their joined hands and she has to smile too. 

“I _did_ get better at that,” she admits. 

He grins. “See? Maybe soon you’ll also get better at knowing that I’m right all the time.” 

She snorts, amused despite herself; she’s sure that’s the reaction he wanted, judging from how pleased he looks. “Or perhaps,” she says, trying to sound as serious as possible, “I will get better at knowing how ridiculous you are all the time.”

“Nah,” he says. “You’ve always been good at that.” 

“Thank you,” she says softly, not having to fake the serious tone this time. The way he manages to make her feel better with just a joke or a smile will never cease to astound her -- or at least, she doesn’t think it will. “I...I do want to learn. All of those things. But I also don’t want to lead you on.” 

“You’re not,” he says, which he has told her before when she’s brought this up, but she can’t help but doubt it anyway. How can it not lead him on when she tells him she wants to go slow and then basically attacks him with her mouth? “You’re not--everything we do together is fun, Mora, honestly. Kissing you is fun. Making out with you is fun. Even when that stuff doesn’t lead anywhere else.”

"It is fun," she allows, then feels herself flush again. She looks down, which only makes things worse, because now she's looking at his chest again, seeing his own blush _there_ and picturing running her fingers along the skin there. She glances back up again quickly, still trying to avoid his eyes, not very successfully. "That's -- sort of the problem, isn't it?"

He considers that, arches an eyebrow. "I don't know, _is_ it a problem? If we're both in agreement and we're both having fun, what's wrong with just...having fun? You deserve to enjoy things, Gamora.”

She takes a breath and blows it back out again, frustrated with herself and the situation. It is _so tempting_ to believe him, to just...jump right back into feeling and not thinking. To throw caution to the wind and consequences be damned. But she just...can’t.

“You were the one who stopped us,” she points out, though she’s fully aware that he was only acting out of concern for her.

He doesn’t seem angry at her, though he has every right to be; he’s had every right to be several times already, and yet he never is. He just smiles. Or--more like smirks, actually. “Because I know you,” he reiterates. “And I know when you’re getting carried away by your lust for me. Not that that’s usually a bad thing, you know, but I figured you’d wanna be sure this time.” 

“Peter,” she hisses, her face heating again. “I was not--” She stops herself, because as instinctually embarrassed as she is by that accusation, she doesn’t want to make Peter feel bad by denying her desire for him. It would be pretty hard to deny. 

“Hey,” he says gently. “I want you just as much. More even. Besides, you said you’d want to--you know--eventually, right?” 

“Yes,” she admits, because she did already. And she really, really does, despite being apprehensive about it. 

“Then there’s nothing wrong with working our way up to it,” he says. “While we both have fun! Because we deserve to have fun, Mora.” 

“You certainly do,” she says. And if his version of having fun happens to involve _her_ having fun, then...perhaps that is all right. 

“You do too,” he reminds her. “But...you don’t have to believe me on that right now.”

“No?” she asks, and now it’s her turn to arch an eyebrow at him, an expression that feels distinctly familiar to her. She thinks she must have done it a lot in that span of difficult-to-label time. 

“No,” he echoes. “I know it’s gonna take time, it’s not something I can just tell you.”

She thinks, suddenly, of Nebula -- Not the Nebula who is in her life now, not the one who has come so very far and made so very much progress. Not the one who is equal parts sister and savior. The one who had tried to kill her, who had ultimately died for her conviction that she was beyond hope, beyond change. Gamora does not want to be -- _that_ , but she also hears the truth in what Peter is saying. She might be able to see the logic, but her stupid, stubborn emotions will take longer to come around.

“That is true,” she allows. “Though -- Since I _do_ believe that _you_ deserve to have fun, I suppose I could...participate in activities that allow you to have it.”

Peter’s gentle smile turns a bit sly again, turns into a smirk. “So you’re saying that you wanna officially level up from kissing to making out?”

She furrows her brow. “Level up?”

“Video game term,” says Peter. “Like...a promotion, basically. You gain new strengths and abilities by leveling up.”

“Then yes,” says Gamora. “I would like to -- level up to making out.” She wrinkles her nose a bit, all of those words feeling funny in her mouth. They don’t feel bad, though. Actually they feel...sort of nice, which shouldn’t be a surprise since they’re Peter words, and everything about him is more than sort of nice.

“Awesome,” he says, and leans in again to get on that as soon as possible.


	31. Chapter 31

Gamora used to have a very strict workout routine. She would be up at the same time every day to spend the same amount of time in the gym on Sanctuary, or wherever she happened to be. She didn’t exactly enjoy the regimen, but it was probably as close as she ever got to enjoying anything while under Thanos’s rule. 

She’s been anything but routine with it since rejoining the Guardians, though. She’s gone plenty of days without working out at all, and the days that she does, she often does it whenever she has the urge and is able to carve out the time. She’s found that she doesn’t miss it nearly as much as she thought she might’ve. Turns out that having a warm, comfortable bed and a warm, comfortable boyfriend who she really enjoys making out with has made it harder to want to leave their room. 

By the time she actually does get herself to the gym a couple of days after their rescue mission, it’s midday in the ship’s cycle. She probably shouldn’t be surprised that there are other people using it at this time, but somehow it does surprise her to see Drax and Mantis in there. Though that may have a lot more to do with the way the gym is set up than their presence in it. 

The Quadrant’s exercise facility is incredibly impressive. It’s clear that everyone in this family enjoys exercise in one form or another, though in very different ways. She’s already seen the multitude of equipment that takes up nearly an entire deck of the ship, of course -- Peter had included it in his tour, and she’s used plenty of it herself.

But until now, she hadn’t realized that the gym is also equipped with full holo-environment functionality. So it’s a shock now to step inside the doors and find herself in an entirely unfamiliar landscape. All of the equipment is gone, replaced by a series of obstacles on bright blue grass. Where the walls used to be, there’s a high fence, a warm yellow sky in place of the ceiling. 

At first her senses are so confused that she thinks she’s somehow fallen through a portal into another dimension or perhaps -- perhaps left her timeline altogether again. She has a moment of panic in which she wonders whether this _was_ all a lie, whether all of the nice things were just another manipulation by Thanos, or by the Stones, whether --

Drax runs by abruptly, roaring one of his deafening war cries. Mantis follows shortly behind him, clapping and cheering. 

He approaches a series of bars, hung along two long poles at a height taller than he is. He jumps up and grabs the first of the bars, then carries himself across them quickly by grabbing each successive one. Mantis follows, still cheering and laughing, but rather than making her way across the bars with her arms like Drax, she grabs hold of each rung with both hands and promptly falls back to the ground, then jumps up to grab the next one. She seems to be using this more for entertainment than exercise. 

Gamora has to admire the obstacle course now that she's accepted it as a normal if impressive feature of their home. There’s a lot of it fit into this space, snaking back and forth so that it’s difficult to tell from here exactly what’s in it. She’s no stranger to obstacles, of course, but the ones Thanos used to make her run did not look nearly as...well, fun as this. This one still seems like it would be good exercise at the same time as being fun. 

Next, Drax and Mantis come upon a double line of circular tubes like old-fashioned tires along the floor. Drax runs through with one foot in each. Gamora recognizes this particular obstacle, only the tires in Thanos’s would electrocute her if her feet remained in them for longer than he deemed an acceptable speed. 

Mantis, again, follows along behind Drax, but she keeps her feet on top of the tire, bouncing along on top of them rather than completing them as designed. 

This must be the end of the course, because Drax stops when he’s done and holds his fists up in the air. “I am the best obstacle-course completer in the galaxy!” 

“You are!” says Mantis, bouncing and clapping her hands. She has an impressive amount of energy, given the fact that they are supposed to be exercising on what appears to be a fairly grueling course. Then again, she clearly hasn’t been completing it in a grueling way. She also seems impressively happy to be bested by Drax, assuming that she was competing as well. Even if she wasn’t, the idea of allowing oneself to be bested in training is utterly foreign to Gamora. Not that the rational part of her thinks anyone here is going to attack her, but it’s hard to forget the penalties she’s lived with for being anything other than the absolute best in all things. 

And penalties aside, it’s hard for her to quiet the genuinely competitive urge that has nothing to do with Thanos’s punishments and everything to do with her own innate ambition and pride.

“Gamora!” Mantis calls, apparently catching sight of her for the first time. 

They both jog up to her, looking happy to see her, not at all defensive or embarrassed at having been watched.

“I am the best obstacle course completer in the galaxy!” Drax repeats, as if she might not have been able to hear before. 

Gamora does not understand what comes over her. She doesn’t know Drax particularly well, and she certainly has no intention of offending him. Yet somehow instinctively her hands find their way to her hips, and she finds herself remarking, “Right now you are the only completer of this obstacle course.”

“You state the obvious,” Drax says, crossing his arms at her and tilting his head; a curious look. “Why?” 

“She means,” Mantis says, “that since you are the only one who completed this obstacle course, you cannot know that you are the best one.” 

“Thank you, Mantis,” Gamora says sincerely. This is far from the first time she’s witnessed Mantis explain nuances of a statement or conversation or metaphor to Drax. 

“I will take on anyone who dares to challenge me!” Drax says. He smiles, then, a knowing look this time, and Gamora is pretty sure that for this, she doesn’t need Mantis to translate for her. Whether it’s because she and Drax have done similar things in the past that she doesn’t remember or just because she’s so obvious about her intention, he can clearly tell. 

Still, best to be sure. “I challenge you,” she says, crossing her arms and smiling to mirror his posture. His smile widens and he lets out a delighted laugh. 

“I accept your challenge!” he says, and Mantis gasps in delight and surprise. 

Gamora glances over at the course, thinking of the way Mantis had to follow Drax along rather than truly racing alongside. “Can the course be set up to accommodate a competition?” 

“Of course!” Mantis says, and then, since the entire set-up is a holo sim, just has to put her hand out to pull up a screen that allows her to make modifications. It only takes a second, and then the course spawns an exact replica of itself, so that they run side by side. 

"Have we done this often?" Gamora asks, suddenly curious and possibly just the smallest bit apprehensive. It isn't like she thinks that Mantis or Drax is about to sabotage her in the way her siblings would have, given this same scenario. The way Nebula _has_ many times before. And it isn't as though -- well, who would the equivalent of Thanos even be here? Peter, she supposes, since he's the captain and the leader of this crew, even if they don't always listen. The thought of him punishing anyone for anything, let alone something as inconsequential as a workout…

"What's funny?" asks Mantis, shattering her thoughts and making her realize that she's gotten lost in them again and now has no idea whether either of them has actually answered the question that started that train of thought. Perhaps she can't blame Drax for being so consistently distracted when this is the family and the environment they live in. 

She looks at Mantis, who has apparently read amusement on her face though she hasn't made any noises. She briefly considers lying, but then decides that's pointless. And besides, they will probably enjoy the mental image too. "I was -- imagining Peter attempting to be a disciplinarian in the style of Thanos."

Drax laughs loudly, tossing his head back dramatically. When she first saw him do this, Gamora thought he was exaggerating, but she soon learned that this is a genuine reaction from him. He and Mantis have that in common; they both feel joy and amusement so freely, never attempt to stifle their reactions. It probably never even occurs to them. 

“That is quite absurd!” Drax says, still laughing. 

“It is,” Gamora agrees, allowing herself to smile. “I was also thinking that I would like to get started.”

“As would I!” Drax declares. All three of them head to the beginning of the course, and on their way Gamora examines it as much as possible, trying to figure out what each obstacle is. Some she has done before; others she hasn’t, but it’s easy enough to discern their purpose. Some she can’t quite figure out, doesn’t know what the challenge is, but she’s sure it will be easy enough to discern once she comes to them. 

She only has a few seconds to study them, because they reach the beginning of the course quickly. It’s in the front corner of the room, the opposite one from where it ends, so it must loop around to end up back in the other front corner. 

She and Drax stand behind a line in front of their copies of the course. “Count us down,” she tells Mantis. 

“What?” asks Drax, which really probably shouldn’t be a surprise. His confusion is beginning to feel as familiar to her as Peter’s warmth, or Nebula’s sarcasm, or even Mantis’s enthusiasm. And yet somehow it does still catch her off-guard, that strange way he can vacillate between moments of brilliance and near-constant distraction. 

“I said ‘count us down,’” Gamora repeats, though she has a feeling that that isn’t what Drax meant. Probably he has some other term for it that isn’t familiar to her. Probably he’s also unable to conceive of any system that isn’t his usual. 

Instead, he surprises her by pointing to the first obstacle in the course, which is something that vaguely resembles a high curved wall made of crackling holo energy. “We are not going down. We are going up. Up the wall to the rest of the course.” He considers what he’s just said, then shakes his head. “I should not be telling you that because you are my competition. But I am both honorable _and_ extremely humble, so I am doing you the favor.”

Gamora sighs. “No, I meant--” She pauses, abruptly remembering that, though she knows what the phrase means, she actually can’t remember how she knows it. It’s certainly not something she’s used to from her upbringing. Though Thanos had her and her siblings complete plenty of obstacle courses, he never gave them the courtesy of a countdown. He would at most say _go_ , and at worst just give them a look that they had better know meant _go_. 

Then she blinks and she has the sudden certainty that Peter has used that phrase, but she is pretty certain it was not in...well, that it was not recent. 

“It just means count down until you get to one, and then that’s when we start,” Gamora explains. 

“Oh,” Drax says. “That is called counting to the start.”

“Fine,” Gamora says, not willing to argue. She turns to Mantis. “Could you count us down or count to the start or whatever you would like to call it?”

“Yes!” she says enthusiastically. “One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety--”

“No, no,” Gamora says, quickly cutting her off and narrowly resisting the urge to rub her temples and groan in frustration; she is going to develop her own ‘dealing with Mantis’ and ‘dealing with Drax’ expressions. Or perhaps she already has. “Can we please...Just say _three, two, one, go_ okay?”

"Yes!" Mantis says very seriously. She steeples her fingers under her chin as if feeling for the correct time to count. She stays silent for a much longer moment than Gamora was expecting, then, as if suddenly speaking a new language where it's all one word, she yells "threetwoonego!"

Gamora is about to protest again, to tell her that the whole point of counting is to be able to anticipate when to start. But she doesn't get that chance. Somehow, for all that Drax is constantly confused, constantly distracted, right now he is perfectly in tune with Mantis. He takes off running at a truly impressive pace given his bulk, and is up the wall before Gamora's even registered what happened. 

Of course, that impressive lead is somewhat undercut by the fact that he pauses at the top to turn around and taunt her. 

"Ha!" he yells, fist in the air. "I have conquered the start, tiny slow green woman!"

Gamora barely has time to register that this must be his version of trash talk -- which she is totally going to have to discuss with Peter later -- before her instincts kick in. She is both faster and lighter than Drax, able to jump considerably higher, so she makes it up the wall in a few brief seconds. He's still standing at the top of it when she comes to rest beside him. 

"Ha," says Gamora, echoing him with a bit more restraint. "Now who is victorious?"

"Still me," says Drax, "if we are talking about the start."

“That was not the challenge,” she points out, then makes a sweeping gesture out towards the rest of the course, a good portion of which is up high like this. “This is.”

Ahead of them is a series of floating blocks in the air between the top of this wall and the next ledge. They’re close enough together that they can run across them with one foot on each, but far enough apart to make it a challenge. 

Gamora wastes no more time before jumping onto the first one, then the next and the next, noting that Drax is slightly behind her on his side. He’s fast but she’s faster, and she reaches the next ledge a little ahead of him. 

The next obstacle is a series of handles hanging from the ceiling that she must grasp onto one at a time in order to swing across to the following platform. Here too she is quicker than Drax, and she allows a smile of exhilaration to come over her face. 

It fades when they begin the next obstacle, though. This one is just two walls, floating parallel to one another with enough space between them to fit a body. Too much space, actually. It requires them to use their hands and feet, stretched out, to move between them, as there is nothing below them or above them but air. Gamora has to stretch her arms all the way out to press against the walls, but Drax, who is taller and wider, doesn’t have to reach as far, allowing for freer movement. He pulls ahead of her by the end. 

They are still far from the end of the course, but he begins to proclaim victory again, yelling a series of taunts she only half understands. Maybe that’s because she’s so focused on finishing the obstacle, or because he’s currently blocked from her view by the surface of the wall in front of her. Or maybe it’s just that his trash talk makes no sense to anyone but him. That’s the thing about Drax, she’s starting to realize -- He always knows what he means, he just is not always very good at articulating it. 

Still, the knowledge that she’s behind and the shouts from Drax make her heart beat a bit faster. It’s yet another one of those ghost sensations that keep coming back to haunt her -- She knows she is safe here, _knows_ that they are just doing this for fun. That it doesn’t mean anything about her ability or her place here if she does not win. That maybe she ought to have even anticipated this, given that Drax has certain physical advantages over her and that he has more familiarity with the course.

And yet she feels an inordinate amount of relief when she sees that the next obstacle is a sort of floating balance beam and that Drax is already struggling in his first few steps on it. 

“We’ve barely started!” Gamora gloats, grinning again as she races across the beam. Balance has always been a strength of hers, and she doesn’t even need to try to stay on it. Here Drax’s bulk is a distinct disadvantage. 

“I already defeated you in the start!” Drax calls after her. 

She ignores him, determined to keep her lead as she goes right into the next obstacle, a series of logs, spaced similarly to the floating blocks, but that spin when stepped on, so she has to compensate for that in her jumps. Still, she does that fairly easily as well, her balance also aiding her here, so that she’s ahead of Drax when she comes to the next challenge. 

It’s a long cylinder, so high above her head that she can’t step on it, and too wide to simply grasp with her hands and carry herself across. She sees its purpose immediately: she needs to wrap her arms and legs around it completely and slide herself across that way. 

She jumps onto it to do just that, and is making her way easily -- until she gets almost halfway across it, and the cylinder suddenly splits in half, the half that she’s on tilting so that now it’s vertical instead of horizontal. She’s so startled that she slips a little bit before tightening her grip. 

She glances over at the other side and sees that Drax, who has of course done this before, obviously knew this was coming. He reaches the split and is able to grab onto the other side early enough that he’s not left hanging on the vertical half. 

“Ha!” Drax shouts as he propels himself past her. “The course has fooled you!” He is having no trouble at all, nearly to the next platform while she hangs basically helpless, stopped by gravity and her own lack of knowledge.

“It did not fool me,” she snaps, frustrated despite herself, defensiveness and competitiveness flaring in equal parts so that her chest feels tight and adrenaline goes racing through her veins. “Fooling implies that I could have known better and did not. I have never done this course before, so how was I to know that there was a trick to this?”

“Exactly!” Drax booms as he steps onto the platform. “There was a trick, therefore it fooled you!”

“What is this?” Gamora retorts. “A competition of fitness or semantics?”

“Drax has very funny antics!” Mantis yells from down below them, making Gamora realize she’s lost track of the fact that they have an audience. She looks down, sees Mantis running along the floor in between the two courses.

Still, she doesn’t have time to pay much attention to that, or to argue any further. For one thing, her arms are going to run out of stamina if she just keeps hanging here supported by only them. For another, Drax has paused on the platform to laugh at her again instead of moving on to his next obstacle. 

Gauging the distance between herself and the platform, Gamora swings her legs to get some momentum going. It takes only a few seconds before she can feel the air rushing by on either side. Then she propels herself upward as she lets go of the obstacle altogether, doing a flip mid-air before landing her jump on her own platform. 

“That is not how that is meant to be completed!” Drax tells her. 

“There is no indication of that,” Gamora says stubbornly. “Nor any indication that it would split in half like that!”

“That is how it fools you!” Drax laughs. 

She shakes her head and decides she’s wasting no more time on this argument. She faces the next obstacle, which looks very easy...too easy, perhaps. She’s wary after the last one that another one is going to try to trick her. That is a very Thanos-like trick to pull, and is indeed one that he often used. But there is no way she is going to let her...apprehension...get in the way of defeating her opponent here. 

A second before Drax does, she jumps to the next challenge, which is simply a series of descending ropes to climb down and jump onto in order to carry them back to the floor and to the rest of the obstacles. She only shimmies half way down the last rope before jumping the rest of the way to get there as fast as possible. 

The next obstacle is familiar too, a net low to the ground that she must get on her belly on the floor to crawl underneath. She’s thrilled that she has the advantage here too, that Drax’s bulk will undoubtedly be a detriment in this. 

"Yes!" Mantis cries, clapping her hands again as Gamora slips under, making good progress. "Yes, Gamora, you are very strong and very fast! Go Gamora!" Then she giggles. "I like that alliteration. Go go Gamora!"

Gamora has to restrain herself from laughing too, both because it seems absurd and a bit wrong to laugh at someone who is showing support for her and because it would not be very strategic to get distracted with amusement and lose the lead that she is building for herself. 

Of course, that only becomes more challenging a moment later when she hears a loud frustrated grunt beside her and turns around to find Drax ensnared in the net on his side of the course. Apparently this obstacle has a trick to it as well, this one being that the coils of rope become animated and grab you if you touch them. Fortunately for Gamora, she has managed to avoid even learning about this problem because she is small and agile enough to avoid contact altogether. But Drax...well, Drax would have been having trouble here without any sort of twist, and now he's having to drag himself along with the net grabbing at him like irritating fingers.

"Why are you cheering for her?" Drax asks Mantis as she keeps up her clapping and yelling. 

"She is doing much better than you!" Mantis says brightly. 

“Oh,” he says, as if genuinely considering that. “That is a good point.” He says it like Mantis flipping sides is the only logical thing she could have done given that circumstance, his voice free of hurt or resentment. That reaction almost makes Gamora pause, but she forces herself through to the end of the obstacle, where she stands up. 

She glances back at Drax to see that he’s still ensnared, still struggling with the ropes as they grab at him with every movement, tangled up in his arms and legs now. Then, she does something she hasn’t done in a challenge since she was a child, newly under Thanos’s thumb: she hesitates. 

She knows this is not a course that Thanos designed, and that Drax will be able to get out of this. But seeing Drax struggle the way he is, she can’t help but be reminded of the times her siblings, especially Nebula, would struggle in the obstacles Thanos set, the traps he would make. Gamora learned very quickly that if she didn’t leave her sister behind, she would receive the same punishment as her, or sometimes worse, so Thanos could knock that sympathetic instinct -- that _weakness_ , he called it -- out of her. She regrets it now, thinking back on Nebula’s pleas when she was young and later, her stubborn insistence that she needed no help. If Gamora could go back, she’d help her every time. 

She can’t go back, of course. Which is ironic, considering that she’s literally traveled through time. Still, she has the feeling that even if she could do it again, even in infinite timelines, there would be no way to truly anticipate, avoid, or undo the harm Thanos has wrought on her life and Nebula’s. He was, as he liked to say, inevitable.

But maybe undoing isn’t the point. Maybe the past isn’t the point either, except as an unfortunate lesson of sorts. She might not be about to experience punishment for her hesitation, but she might as well be under that threat if she continues acting as though she is. And so, swallowing down her instincts, she turns around and moves to help Drax, reaching over to his side of the course. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, as she grabs a couple loops of rope in one hand and attempts to shove his arm back through it. The net doesn’t react by trying to grab her, which is interesting. Perhaps because it isn’t her side of the course or perhaps just because she’s above it instead of under it. Still, she fights with it for a few moments before losing patience. Pulling out her sword, she slices through the offending ropes cleanly.

“It is only a hologram,” Drax tells her, though he appears plenty happy to be free of said hologram, which was nonetheless holding him down in their race.

“I know,” says Gamora. She takes off running toward the next obstacle before he’s had any chance to react at all. 

She hears Drax laugh behind her. “Together we have conquered the net!” 

Strangely, Gamora finds herself grinning wider and feeling better than she has through this entire competition, which only has a little to do with the fact that she’s pulled ahead again. It’s still absurd, because she just helped her opponent, but, well...maybe that’s not the terrible weakness Thanos led her to believe. 

Their next obstacle is jumping over hurdles, which is easy for both of them. Gamora’s cybernetic skeleton and enhancements to the muscles in her legs give her quite a high jump, and Drax appears to have that ability naturally, as he too can jump over two hurdles at once. 

Still, she’s got a head start to the obstacle after, which is a series of what appear to be punching bags dangling from the ceiling, very close together. Gamora at first wonders if they need to punch their way through, but that wouldn’t make sense. Fearful of losing her lead, she decides to just run right for them and see if she can shove them out of her way -- which she can. She’s not sure if that’s what you’re supposed to do, but it works because she’s so strong, and small enough to fit through the tiny gaps she makes when pushing them aside. 

She glances over at the other side when she makes a sliver through the bags, expecting to see Drax behind. But to her surprise, he’s caught up with her, and is rapidly gaining a lead. She may be strong, but Drax’s hard head and broad shoulders are aiding him here. Rather than needing to shove the bags aside with his arms, he’s just plowing straight through them while laughing rather loudly, his bulk doing the work for him. 

He bursts out of the bags ahead of her, but Gamora manages to pick up some speed by leaping and kicking the bags out of her way several at a time. So she’s only a few steps behind him as she exits that obstacle as well. Up next are the overhead bars she remembers seeing Drax on when she’d first entered the gym and managed to pick her jaw up off the floor. 

Drax is already on the second of the bars and reaching for the third when Gamora approaches them. Here again, his longer reach is an advantage over her. She considers for only half a second before taking a running start toward the bars on her side. She catches the first bar, then swings a couple times before propelling herself all the way to the fourth. Again, it probably isn’t the way it’s meant to be completed, but all she cares about right now is winning and the fact that she’s regained a very narrow lead over Drax.

“You shall not defeat me!” Drax cries dramatically. 

“We’ll see about that,” Gamora says, confident in her lead. But that seems to spur Drax on because he lets out a war cry and propels himself forward at an even faster pace, so that by the time they reach the end of this obstacle, they both hit the ground at the same time. 

Gamora dashes to the tires, the very last obstacle they have to complete, her last chance to win. She’s sure she’ll have the advantage here, being faster and smaller, so her legs will better fit through the holes. 

The tires have a different idea, though. They seem to have the effect of equalizing their speed somehow -- that, or Drax’s prior knowledge of the patterns give him an advantage -- because he stays level with her through the entire thing. Her heart is racing by the time they reach the end. She tries to get an extra burst of speed, launching herself across the line that marks the end of the course, but Drax does the same thing and he’s right next to her as she lands on the other side. 

“It’s a tie!” Mantis says, applauding. 

“Are you sure?” Gamora asks, eyes narrowed at the line on the ground as if that will give her the answer. “I think I won.”

“You did not!” Drax declares. “If either of us won, it was me!” 

“And how do you figure that?” asks Gamora, looking down at the line again. The course is programmed so that it turns green for the winner, she realizes. Which means that it should have turned red for the loser, she figures, or some other color at least. Hers _is_ green...but so is Drax’s. Her defensive instincts flare a bit.

“My line is green,” Drax points out. He puffs out his chest in her direction. “My line is green, therefore I have won! Besides, I am the best obstacle course completer in the galaxy!”

“My line is green too,” says Gamora, crossing her arms. “By your own logic, does that not mean that _I_ won?” 

“Both of your lines are green!” says Mantis. “That means you both won, so it is a tie! I think! Peter says it is called a tie, but I do not know why he says that!”

“That name makes no sense,” Drax says at the same time that Gamora thinks pretty much the exact same thing. She was about to open her mouth to argue some more, but this makes her pause. 

“No, it does not!” Mantis agrees cheerfully. Drax is frowning, but it’s not actually a mad or a sad frown, just one of confusion. It’s the same kind of irritation she feels when she encounters names that don’t make sense. It’s almost a playful kind of irritation. Nothing like how she or her siblings would have reacted to “tying” or losing in the past. 

She never did actually tie in challenges like these when she was a Daughter of Thanos; she only either won or lost. Usually won. If she won, she’d be greeted by a stiff nod from a handler, or a sickeningly pleased smile from Thanos. And she would get a hollow feeling of satisfaction that she’d proven herself to be the best and avoided the pain that came from losing. But it was always at the cost of someone else’s pain. 

Here, now, even if she had actually lost, she’s sure that she still would have been greeted with a smile and cheer from Mantis, and Drax would still be friendly, though insufferably pleased about winning. But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. 

“Well,” Gamora says, a playful challenge in her tone. ‘It seems to me there is only one way to solve this: I challenge you to a re-match.” 

Drax grins, like she knew he would. “I accept!” Mantis cheers, and Gamora races them back to the start.

* * *

Nebula leaves the dinner table as soon as the meal is done, telling Peter and Drax that it’s their turn to handle the cleanup. Gamora is not aware of any sort of formal schedule for whose turn it is to do which chores, but Nebula and Rocket always seem to know. Gamora wonders for a moment whether it has always been that way or whether it’s new, another product of the five years they spent here without everyone else.

Either way, tonight Gamora is especially glad for it. On any other night, she might have offered to stay with Peter, to assist him in washing the dishes. But tonight she wants to talk to Nebula, and she wants to do it without him present. This provides an ideal opening to do just that, without having to tell Peter why she doesn’t want him present. Instead, all she has to do is follow her sister down the hall toward her quarters. To her credit, Nebula lets them get out of earshot of the others before turning around to confront her.

“Can I help you?” she asks, in a sardonic tone that Gamora sees right through. She might not have once upon a time, but, well. She knows her sister much better now. 

“I want to talk to you,” she explains.

“We talked at dinner,” Nebula says. There’s a tiny little quirk of her lips, amusement at her own observation. It makes Gamora smile. 

“I meant alone,” she elaborates, even though she’s sure Nebula knows that. 

“Okay,” Nebula says, crossing her arms. “We are alone right now.”

Gamora sighs. Nebula is likely just giving her a hard time because she finds it amusing, but if she actually doesn’t want to talk to her… “We don’t have to if--”

“Oh, shut up,” Nebula says, cutting her off and rolling her eyes. “Come on.” Then she turns and resumes walking down the hall towards her quarters. Gamora matches her eye-roll behind her back, but it’s all affectionate. Okay, maybe a little bit exasperation. Twelve percent exasperation. 

Once they get into Nebula’s quarters, which look just the same as they did the last time she was in here, Gamora invites herself to sit on the edge of Nebula’s bed. She even leans back a little bit on her hands, practically lounging. 

Nebula remains standing out of stubborness. “What do you want to talk about?”

Despite her growing comfort with talking to her sister, and being here in her room, she balks at the idea of jumping right into it like that. So instead, she says, “Have you heard from Fynn lately?” 

Nebula crosses her arms, still stubborn. Actually, being even more stubborn now because Gamora has mentioned Fynn. 

"I am not in touch with any of my contacts right now," Nebula sniffs, looking down her nose at Gamora, which is also predictable to the point of being a bit comforting. "Why would I be when the valiant Corman has provided us with his brilliant method of finding the Sons?"

"Oh," says Gamora. "My mistake. I didn't realize that you only ever talked to her about the Sons. Especially seeing as how they have only been in the picture for the past few weeks."

"How is your boyfriend?" Nebula counters. "Is he fully fixed?"

“He was never broken--” Gamora begins, confused and prepared to be defensive before she realizes that Nebula means his injury. This is her way of asking after him. “Oh. Yes. His burn is healing very well.”

Nebula grunts in acknowledgment. “So. Is this all you wanted to talk about?”

“No,” Gamora says. She picks at the blanket underneath her with her fingers, trying to think of how to delay a little bit longer. 

Nebula sighs loudly, and rather over-dramatically, then sits down on the bed next to her. “Is everything--okay?” she asks, as if it’s the most painful sentence she’s ever uttered. 

Her dramatics make Gamora smile, and she relaxes a bit. This is her sister here; there is no reason to hesitate with her. She thinks about how absurd that thought would have been to her a few months ago and smiles wider. “Yes. Everything is...more than okay.” Then she decides to just bite the bullet -- a strange phrase she learned from Peter, but one she admittedly likes -- and says, “Do you know anything about my and Peter’s sex life? From--before?” 

Nebula recoils in a way that is absolutely predictable, but still equal parts entertaining and insulting all the same. It isn’t as though Gamora expected that her sister would be eager to talk about this. A part of her doesn’t even _want_ to have it at all, is tempted to just leave or to go back to teasing Nebula about Fynn as a deflection. But she needs the information and there isn’t anyone else she’s willing to ask for it. She also certainly hopes that nobody else _has_ the information, that she didn’t confide in anyone like Mantis or Drax. She is fairly certain she never would have.

“You should have informed me you wanted to talk about this _before_ dinner,” says Nebula. “So that I could have chosen to minimize the associated nausea by limiting my intake.”

Gamora shakes her head, but she feels a bit of relief all the same. All things considered, that’s a pretty tame remark for Nebula. “If I had, you would be accusing me of ruining your appetite.”

“And that would also be true,” Nebula retorts.

“Do you know anything or not?” Gamora sighs. 

Nebula still looks like she would rather be having any other conversation, and in fact Gamora wonders for a moment whether she’d prefer flinging herself out the window into space rather than continue it. But finally she says, “I know a hell of a lot more than I want to. Why? Why are you asking me this now? Surely you know more about it than I do.”

Gamora is quiet, a blush that she’s managed to stifle until now crawling up her cheeks. She doesn’t know how to respond to that, so she doesn’t, and Nebula takes the answer from her silence. 

“Do you not?” she asks, surprised. 

“Well, we haven’t--” Gamora starts, feeling instinctively defensive. “I mean, I know we _have_ , but not since I...came back. And I don’t remember…” She breaks off, swallowing. She knew this would not be an easy conversation, but it’s a lot harder than she imagined. “I was just wondering if I had told you anything that might...help me.”

The expression on Nebula’s face is downright comical, so much so that Gamora nearly laughs despite her discomfort. Her face is contorted, nose wrinkled, and for a second Gamora worries again about the possibility of her crashing through the window. But her sister loves her, a thought that warms her heart every time she has it, so she powers through. 

“It is not like you gave me many details,” Nebula says. “And if you try I will stab you, so don’t get any ideas.”

“I don’t have any details to give you,” says Gamora, still feeling defensive and a bit desperate now as well. If Nebula doesn’t know, then perhaps that information is actually gone for -- Well, no. Not gone forever, because Peter still has it. But it feels inaccessible that way, though the rational part of her is certain he would be happy to share it. It is just the act of asking feels so -- So the antithesis of everything love and sex are meant to be. So much the antithesis of the person he wants _her_ to be. If she has to ask him, or if she does not figure out a way to know, it will feel like a terrible failure. Like she is a fraud.

Nebula eyes her, as though trying to figure out whether she’s serious or bluffing. She crosses her arms. “You really mean to tell me that you and Quill have yet to -- engage in intercourse?”

Gamora laughs helplessly, her sister’s awkwardness breaking through some of her own anxiety. “Well when you put it that way, it sounds like a flight maneuver.”

“Can we talk about those instead?” Nebula asks without any bite. 

“No,” Gamora says, almost smiling. 

Nebula grunts. “Fine. Yes, I know some things about--ugh, gross--you and Quill’s sex life. You talked about him incessantly -- and apparently you had sex incessantly -- so it was bound to come up occasionally.” 

“Did I--Did I say that?” Gamora asks. “That we did it that often?”

“Not verbatim,” Nebula admits. “But from the way you talked about it, ugh.” She’s basically sighing with every uninformative statement. 

“Will you tell me about the first time I told you about it?” Gamora asks, thinking that’s as good a place as any to start. Perhaps then they can ease into the rest. 

“I suppose,” Nebula grunts. “It came up when you were attempting to convince me to see the benefits of our enhancements, aside from their intended purpose. Some of them make you...very sensitive.” She makes a face. She’s pretty much doing that with everything she says, too. 

Gamora blushes -- which she’s also gonna have to get used to doing with this entire conversation, she’s pretty sure. “Oh.”

"You also told me," says Nebula, "that your enhancements made it easier for you to go long periods without breathing. Which was apparently helpful for kissing. And...other things."

"Other things?" asks Gamora, frowning a bit as she tries to picture it. She has already seen the benefits of her enhancements for kissing, sort of wishes that Peter had an equal amount of stamina there. Though, she does sort of love watching him pant. It's like...well, it makes her feel as though she has stolen his breath in the best possible way. But she cannot picture what else she would have used her enhanced breathing for, unless they had some reason to be making out underwater…

Nebula rolls her eyes and scrunches up her nose again. "I believe it related to having certain parts of his -- anatomy in your mouth. You liked that you were able to do that without breathing very hard. Though personally, I never understood your ability to put your mouth on any part of him without gagging. He is so _hairy._ "

Gamora opens her mouth but only manages a weak sound in response, and quickly closes it again, hoping Nebula didn’t notice. She’s doing her best not to let her thoughts wander now that she understands what Nebula’s saying, but it’s no use; her mind is already there, imagining what it would feel like, what he would look like, and sound like… 

Her heart is rapidly beating against her chest, and it hasn’t escaped Nebula’s notice at all, judging from the way she smirks. 

“His hair is--nice,” Gamora says, figuring she has to respond. She certainly likes his chest hair, the way it looks and feels. And that hair that starts below his navel and disappears into his boxers, or his towel that one time…

“Gross,” Nebula says, her nose wrinkled up. “Ugh, you’re picturing it, aren’t you?”

“I am here to gather information,” Gamora says, instead of actually answering. 

“Well, apparently _he_ is very sensitive too,” Nebula informs her. She says the word ‘sensitive’ like it’s physically paining her to do so. “Though unrelated to enhancements. _Responsive_ is the word you used.”

"Oh," says Gamora. She thinks of the way he seems to alternately shudder and melt at her touch, the way he often sighs into their kisses, the noises he'd made when she'd touched that spot behind his ear. "Yes, that does seem very fitting."

"Ugh," says Nebula. "Terrans are so disgustingly soft in so many ways. And he makes you soft."

"And again," Gamora points out, "you are the one encouraging me to take that back. There was nothing soft in the me that came here from nine years ago."

Nebula shakes her head, though, and this time it doesn't look either mocking or disgusted. Just -- genuine. "No, sister. You have always been soft at your core. Quill is many things, but he is not talented enough to change you that dramatically in the course of a few days. That was all you."

"I am not --" she begins instinctively, and then considers the idea of softness. She thinks again of kissing Peter, of tending to his wounds. Of teaching Mantis and parenting Groot. Of allowing herself to fulfill some of her own wishes. She shakes herself. "Perhaps you are right about that."

“I am,” Nebula says, her shoulders straightening up in pride. “You should listen to me more.”

“I am trying to,” Gamora says insistently. “If you will tell me more.”

Nebula groans. “It’s not like I kept a...an internal log of all the dumb stuff you’ve told me,” she says. “I try to block most of it out, actually.” 

“Do I tell you that much?” Gamora asks, not sure how she feels about this. Of course she’s grateful that she has someone to talk to about this, but it makes her worry about invading Peter’s privacy, or breaking his trust, by telling Nebula things about him. “Is that...wrong?”

“If I say yes, can we stop talking about this?” Nebula asks. 

“Nebula, please,” Gamora begs. 

She heaves a Groot-like dramatic sigh. “Of course it’s not wrong, oh my gods. You don’t tell me too many details. Then it might be. But you’re just--seeking my advice, for whatever unknowable reason. You tell me general, stupid things, like you laugh a lot.”

“During sex?” Gamora asks, surprised. 

“No, while repairing ships,” Nebula says, rolling her eyes. “Yes, during sex. And you told me it was _with_ him, not _at_ him, as I had guessed.”

Gamora pauses, feeling the smallest bit apprehensive again as she tries to picture that. True, Peter seems to be able to bring a sense of levity and...well, _fun_ to just about anything. And he did just refer to making out as ‘having fun,’ didn’t he? But it’s still hard for her to imagine laughing during something as intimate and vulnerable as sex, something that feels so sacred.

“He doesn’t...laugh at _me,_ does he?” asks Gamora, in spite of herself. She is fully aware that that is a pathetic question and that Nebula has every right to call her out on it being a pathetic question. But she still needs to hear the answer explicitly.

Nebula rolls her eyes again. “Do you think I would let him live if he did?”

Gamora blinks, surprised yet again by the fierce protectiveness in her sister’s voice. Then again, Nebula has done nothing but act in her best interest since...well, since the beginning of whatever this is. It makes no sense that she would lie about something so important now, or encourage her to get involved with Peter if he as only going to hurt her in some fundamental way. “No. I suppose not.”

“Apparently, you did not know it could be _fun_ before Peter,” Nebula says. “He taught you a lot of things. So perhaps it would be better if you were talking to _him_ about this.”

Gamora shakes her head automatically. “I can’t. He--he already knows all of this, he knows everything about me, and I know nothing. I don’t want to disappoint him.” 

“I am positive you will not,” Nebula says flatly. “And I am not just saying that because I’m sick of this conversation.”

“But--” Gamora starts, and Nebula glares at her and holds her hand up to interrupt her. 

“You didn’t know anything about his--preferences the first time, either,” she says. “And it was presumably fine.”

“But this time he _does_ know everything about me,” Gamora points out. “He’s got a huge head start.”

“It’s not a race, sister,” Nebula says. “And that just means he will have an easier time helping you. He did it before. Let him do it again.”

Gamora stares at her for a few moments, two sides of her warring with themselves. She wants to believe her sister, but the thought that she could have such a nice thing, so simply? That’s hard for her to handle. But Nebula’s logic is hard to deny. 

“When did you get so wise?” Gamora asks, smiling despite herself. 

“I have always been the smartest,” Nebula says proudly. “It’s about time you learned.” 

“I did not say you were the smartest,” Gamora says quickly, but she’s still grinning. The fact that competition can be playful, and not life or death, is one of her favorite things she’s learned lately. “And do not think I forgot about Fynn -- we are not done with that conversation.”

“I have to go,” Nebula says, making to stand up. Gamora laughs and grabs her arm, keeping her there. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Gamora says, and settles about prying more information out of her sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, we're probably not gonna be posting a chapter next Monday! The holidays have been cray cray, we're a bit behind so we'll likely need the week to catch up <3


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO FRIENDS sorry this took us a lot longer than we'd anticipated! We just finished up writing and editing this chapter at 1:00am. It's also our longest chapter like ever tho, so we hope that makes up for the delay in posting. Enjoy! ;)

She can’t stop thinking about her conversation with Nebula, or the fact that literally everyone and everything around her seems to be pushing her to give in to her desires and just...have the nice things that she so badly wants. Not everyone has been giving her advice about _leveling up_ with Peter, of course. But somehow in her mind it’s all connected -- Groot inviting her to play games with him, Mantis relentlessly but sincerely complimenting her, Drax encouraging her to join him in fourth and fifth helpings of food and drinks at every communal meal. 

The only one who doesn’t seem to subscribe to that same philosophy, that same ease of just _being happy_ , she notices, is Rocket. It isn’t so much that he’s being mean to her anymore, at least not in a way that’s any different from the vitriol he displays toward everyone who isn’t Groot and sometimes Groot as well. He’s just more...restrained. In both his interactions with her and the way he treats himself, despite all his claims of being self-centered. Perhaps they have even more in common than she has allowed herself to consider.

But she doesn’t have much time to think about that right now, because right now she’s with Peter, in their quarters, and they could both really use a shower before bed.

“Do you wanna shower first?” Peter asks, gesturing towards the bathroom. He’s got a small towel over his shoulders that he’s using to wipe sweat off his neck. She’s got a similar one, though she’s less sweaty than he is. But still, she’s got that warm, damp feeling that comes after a good workout; the heat and stretch in her limbs, the satisfaction in her core. 

She’s distracted by the stretch of Peter’s own muscles as he wipes the back of his neck off. She’d been fairly distracted by him the entire time they were exercising together. His cheeks are flushed… She wonders if his chest would be flushed too. She bets it is. The collar of the shirt he’s wearing is drenched with sweat. He really ought to take it off. 

She glances at the bathroom, the door of which is open, revealing the shower that she’s been using since they returned to these quarters, and the tub she has been hesitant to. Why, though? She knows she will enjoy it, and there is no reason to fear enjoying herself anymore. There’s no Thanos around to punish her for doing something for herself. The only one standing in her way of happiness is herself. 

She looks back at Peter, who’s got an eyebrow raised, likely curious why she has yet to answer him. 

“I was thinking about the tub, actually,” she says, as casually as she can. 

“Oh!” says Peter, surprised. “Hey, that’s a really awesome idea!”

Gamora feels a fresh rush of apprehension at the thought that he’s eager because he wants to get in the tub with her, because he wants...what? Hasn’t that been her idea this whole time, her intention to suggest that they do this together, that they make it their next step or level or whatever he wants to call it? That was _exactly_ her intention and yet now here she is fearing that he’ll...what, want the same? She is being ridiculous. She would like very much to stab her brain.

“You can still go first,” he says, almost as if he’s managed to read her mind, only probably not the part about being ridiculous or stabbing it. Then again, maybe he also knows those parts of her, if he knows all the most intimate ones.

“Well,” Gamora hedges, still not quite ready to outright tell him what she wants. “Well, that would -- require you to stay up for a long while waiting for me.”

“That’s okay,” he insists. “I don’t mind. I totally want you to try the tub!”

She crosses her arms and lifts her chin, her tone defiant though it’s mostly aimed at her own doubts. “What if I want to try the tub with you?”

His eyes widen more than she’d have thought possible. They look like they could pop out of his head, and she almost lets out a slightly hysterical laugh at that thought. 

“Is--is that what you want?” he asks, sounding a lot calmer than he looks. She can tell how badly he wants this to be true, but he’s trying not to push her, because he cares about her so much and would never do anything she didn’t want. That gives her the strength to be honest. 

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I do. Will you...show me?” 

“Yes!” he says, all that fake calm melting away into adorable enthusiasm. “Heck yeah, let’s go!” 

He ushers her into the bathroom and she allows herself a smile. Standing in front of the tub makes her heart flutter, with excitement and apprehension, but she is going to let herself have this thing she wants. That _he_ wants too. 

“Do you wanna do a bubble bath?” he asks. “Or just regular?”

“Um,” she says, hesitating. Bubble baths sound intriguing, but she’s not sure how much extra effort they take. “What do I usually prefer?”

“Bubble baths,” Peter says decisively, opening up the door of a cabinet near the tub, revealing shelves full of different bathing accoutrements, including rows of different types of bubble bath. “What kind?”

Her head spins from the choices. “Will you choose?” she asks, somewhat desperately. 

“Of course,” he says, pulling out one near the front. “This one is your favorite.” He pops it open and holds it close to her for her to smell. 

She inhales and barely has time to perceive the scent at all before an overwhelming wave of emotion hits her. The scent itself is sweet and spicy, makes her think simultaneously of their cozy bed and something wonderful to eat. There isn’t a specific memory attached to her reaction, no thoughts or images in the same way she’s gotten others before. She just has a vivid sense of _home_ and _warmth_ and _love_. Good things have been accompanied by this scent, she knows without question. A lot of good things. Good things that she wants back.

“Gamora?” he asks gently, and she realizes that she’s still standing stricken, tears in her eyes that she hasn’t quite allowed to fall. She blinks them back quickly. She is taking chances and being vulnerable tonight, but she does not feel prepared to be quite _that_ vulnerable if she doesn’t have to.

“I’m good,” she says quickly. “I’m good, I just -- I like it. We must have used it a lot, right?”

He nods. “Like I said, your favorite.”

“And we had -- good times while we were using it,” she continues.

Peter nods again. “Yeah, totally. Did you remember something?”

“No,” she says softly, wistfully. “Not really. Just--happiness. Being happy.”

“That’s a good...non-memory,” he says. He turns the bubble bath over in his hands, looking a bit lost about what to do next, which is odd, because he’s the one who remembers all the times they’ve done this. But she supposes they have never done this in this exact, strange context before. 

“So, you gave me a tour of the whole ship,” Gamora says, his shyness oddly giving her a boost of confidence. “Perhaps you could give me a more in-depth tour of this tub?”

“Absolutely!” he says, perking right up. He puts his hand on her back, though he can’t really guide her much closer to the tub. He gestures to it grandly with the bottle of bubble bath. “So, this is the best bathtub in the entire galaxy!”

Gamora nods, smiling indulgently, though he’s already told her as much. “Will you tell me why?”

“Yes!” he says, grinning even wider. “Well, I know I told you about the jets, right?” She nods. “These are them!” He points to several holes in the sides of the tub. He goes about pointing out all the features in turn as he names them. “This is the draining, cleaning system, so it keeps cycling clean water through. These are lights, so we can light up the water, and change the colors. And this is the sound system for music in and out of the water, and these are the temperature controls!”

Gamora’s eyes grow wider and wider as he explains all the features. She already knew it was going to be _a lot_ , but having it all right in front of her, when she’s about to _have_ it… It seems like even more than she’d expected. 

"It's a lot," says Peter, seeming to sense her thoughts yet again. Perhaps she has had them before. 

"Well," says Gamora, "I know that you said you got it for me, so I am not surprised that it is."

He looks confused, scratching the back of his neck. "That it's what?"

"A lot," she repeats easily. "Because you got it for -- us. And it seems to me that your gifts are always so much. In a good way."

He offers her a sheepish smile, looking shy again. "Well. As long as it's in a good way."

"It is," she promises one more time. 

Peter nods, scratches the back of his neck again, then busies himself actually preparing the bath. Despite its huge size, it fills impressively fast, and she can sense the warmth of the water by the small amounts of steam coming off the top. After a moment, he pours some of the bubble bath mix into a compartment on the tub and that achingly familiar smell wafts into the air. Gamora catches her breath in delight as a layer of light pink bubbles forms on the surface. 

“This is another reason it’s your favorite,” Peter confesses, and she tears her eyes away from the water to see that he’s watching her with a soft expression on his face; he looks like he’s about to melt. 

“It is beautiful,” she whispers. The water has stopped now, and the pink bubbles cover the entire surface. One occasionally will float off the surface, then pop a few feet above. It’s more than beautiful; it’s transfixing. 

“Yeah,” Peter says quietly. He puts the bottle of bubble bath down on the counter by the sink, then rubs the back of his neck. “So, um… Do you wanna get in first? I can, uh… look away if you want, or…” 

“Oh,” she says, biting her lip. She’s not hesitant, really, she just hadn’t expected to take control here, though she appreciates that Peter is giving it to her. She just wishes she had of an idea of what to do. “No, you don’t have to...I want to do this with you, Peter. Not...half do it, or only partially do it. Let’s—do it the way we normally would.” 

"Okay," says Peter. "Well, then the way we normally do it is we get undressed next."

"Okay," she agrees, looking at him expectantly. She's meant every word of what she's said, does absolutely want to do this with him even if she knows it includes getting undressed in his presence. No, that isn't accurate. She _wants_ to get undressed in his presence. But she still feels apprehensive about making the first move toward doing that, appearing too eager or otherwise making a fool of herself. So she waits for him to start it off, the same way she has for so many other things. 

"Okay," Peter says again, perhaps feeling the same apprehension that she does. He scratches the back of his neck for the umpteenth time tonight. What he doesn't do is make any move to get undressed like he's said they should. 

"Should I -- count us down?" she asks, only half joking. She remembers Drax and his insistence that that saying makes no sense.

Peter laughs, though, the tension broken for the moment. "No, no. I'll start." He pulls his shirt over his head easily. 

She’s briefly surprised by the sudden amount of Peter skin suddenly available to her eyes, though she really shouldn’t be with all the build-up to it. She supposes there’s really no way to prepare herself for such an attractive sight; she wonders if she ever got used to it. She’s especially glad to see -- courtesy of the mirror -- that the burns on his back have fully healed.

At first, she tells herself not to stare, but that only lasts for a second before she remembers that she is allowed to, that Peter would certainly even encourage her to. So she allows her eyes to roam over the exposed skin, the hair that she’s becoming more and more familiar with, the lines of muscle. The flush on his skin, whether from the exercise or embarrassment or excitement, spreads all the way down to his chest. When her eyes make it back up to his face, the blush there has deepened but he’s smirking, looking distinctly pleased with her assessment. 

She’s suddenly extremely eager to see the rest of him, but figures she should take the same plunge as him. Before she can talk herself out of it, she grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it off as quickly as he had. 

In their _making out_ , they have not quite ‘leveled up’ to taking her clothing off, though her shirt has gotten raked up a good deal. She’s wearing a sports bra underneath, so it’s not as though she’s suddenly revealed everything, and obviously, Peter has seen this many, many times before over the course of four years. But still, it feels distinctly vulnerable to be doing this so deliberately, in the stark light of the bathroom. The top edge of her silver is even peeking out over the top of her leggings. 

She has a flash of insecurity where her eyes feel practically glued to the floor, unable to look up at him. She has half of a wildly irrational thought that perhaps her body appears somehow different than her past-- well, different than he might be expecting. That this might be that horrible moment she keeps awaiting in which everything falls apart. That is ridiculous though. That is ridiculous and she is not going to be ruled by fear any longer. She is _not_.

When she finally manages to look up again, she finds Peter staring at her with tears in his eyes and with that expression that leaves absolutely no doubt about the fact that she is the most important thing to him in the whole universe. 

Feeling her cheeks flush again, though more pleasantly this time, Gamora ducks her head and tries to remove her bra before she can start to overthink again. She is more than flexible and dexterous enough to undo it in a second under normal circumstances, but today her fingers are shaking and it's a struggle. 

"Hey," Peter says gently, stilling her with a hand on top of hers. "Can I help?"

She looks down at their hands, at the contrast of his against hers; the size and the color and all the other subtle differences that she can’t wait to know even more intimately. Her skin warms at just that slight touch. The anticipation doesn’t hurt, either. 

She nods, making sure to look him in the eye as she does, so he knows she’s sure. She may be nervous, but she is positive that she wants this. 

Peter offers her a soft smile before deftly undoing her bra, his fingers succeeding easily where hers had failed, and sliding it down her arms with so much care she might as well be made of delicate glass. 

When it’s off, she watches his face closely for his reaction, absurdly apprehensive about it. Though he’s seen her like this thousands of times, she has no recollection; to her this is brand new, the first time she’s ever exposing herself like this. 

Peter knows this, obviously, and lifts his eyes back to hers quickly. His eyes are unmistakably darker than they were before, but still just as warm, and caring -- possibly even more so. It’s making something in her abdomen coil and warm in response. His voice is soft and reverent when he says, “You’re beautiful, Gamora.” 

She shivers, the words feeling as though they vibrate through her, set the pool of tension at her core into rippling motion despite the fact that he hasn’t actually touched her. Everything feels heightened right now, like she is feeling past and present and future coalescing into one despite the lack of actual remembered detail. 

“I am -- glad you think that,” she murmurs, for lack of anything better to say. 

“I’m glad you’re glad,” says Peter. He pauses for a beat, clearly realizing that they need to keep moving forward with this taking their clothes off plan but still feeling a bit shy or awkward about it. Finally he moves abruptly to shove his pants and underwear down in one motion, then nearly trips himself because he’s forgotten to take off his boots. 

Gamora puts out a hand instinctively to steady him as he bends down to unzip his boots, then kicks the whole mess toward the bathroom door. It doesn’t quite make it, his belt buckle striking the doorframe with a metallic ping. He jumps, glances after it, then bursts into laughter.

She laughs too, but only a little. His antics are adorable, but it’s difficult to be as amused by them as she normally might be when she’s so distracted by the challenge of both looking and not looking at him at the same time. She wants to let herself soak in all this newly exposed skin -- her neck is nearly straining with the effort not to just fixate in one spot -- but she doesn’t want to make Peter feel awkward by openly staring. This feels different than looking at his chest or shoulders, areas she knows he doesn’t mind her staring at. 

Her skin feels heated, and she knows the silver on her abdomen is deepening. Try as she might, she can’t not look. And he did undress in front of her, so it’s likely absurd of her to think he would mind at all. 

“You are beautiful, too,” she whispers, lifting her eyes to his face. He’s biting his lip, and there’s emotion all over his expression. Positive emotions, she’s fairly sure. 

“Thank you,” he says, voice softened by those emotions. His feet shuffle, confirming that he’s still feeling awkward. She’s happy, almost, that he’s in the same boat as her there. 

“You are welcome,” she says. Then, feigning a confidence she doesn’t quite feel, she follows his example and shucks off her pants and underwear in one go. She tosses them the same way he did his, but much more gracefully; her clothing makes it out of the room. Perhaps if she focuses on that, it will make her feel less vulnerable right now. 

Peter reaches toward her in what’s clearly an instinctive gesture, just his hand crossing the gulf between them and yet it feels like one of the most significant things that has ever happened in her life. Gamora catches her breath and tries not to tense up, tries to swallow down the apprehension that just _will not_ leave, no matter how much she reminds herself that she can have the things she wants.

She thinks -- expects, really -- that he is going to touch her breast, or perhaps somewhere even more intimate. She likes the idea of that, wants him to do it, and yet -- and yet those damn doubts, the way her heart won’t stop fluttering. Peter hesitates for only a second, then rests his hand against her cheek and leans in to kiss her, still perfectly gentle and incredibly chaste, considering that they’re both, well, naked.

“I like this part of the tour,” she manages, when he pulls away to breathe.

Peter blinks, his brain taking a second to catch up and remember what she’s talking about. “Me too. But just wait til you see how nice it is to kiss _in_ the tub.”

“Is that the next stop on the tour?” she asks, more than a little hopeful. She’s also way more than a little eager and excited to finally get in the tub, those positive feelings far out-weighing the lingering apprehension. 

“It’s a customizable tour,” Peter says. “The next stop is anything you want it to be.”

“Then I would like it if you showed me,” she tells him. She may be feeling more excitement than nerves now, but she is still nervous about somehow doing this wrong. 

“Of course,” he says. He kisses her lips one more time, the contact fleeting, leaving her wishing he’d stayed longer. But then he’s swinging one of his legs over the side of the tub, then the other, and she’s definitely staring at him as he does. She can’t help it. She’s got to study the way he does this so she can learn, obviously. Plus, he’s absolutely gorgeous. 

He sinks down so that his back is resting on one side of the tub, all of him below the water and the cover of the bubbles from mid-chest down. She gets a flash, suddenly, another memory that’s not really a specific image but rather a sense, a feeling. She knows instinctively that what she would normally do here is to get in right in front of him, with her back pressed up to his front, and his arms around her, and be surrounded by warmth on all sides, from Peter and from the water. She wants, almost desperately, to do that right now. But here, the apprehension wins, and she carefully steps in on the opposite side, facing him. 

The water feels even better than she had imagined. Perhaps, then, that shadowy half-thought had not been a true memory. Or perhaps it’s just that something _this_ wonderful can only be fully experienced in the moment. Whichever it is, it no longer really matters to her. Nothing really matters to her except the water and the warmth and the fact that it is all around her. She lets her eyes slip closed, lets everything fall away but the absolute bliss of this, and for one wonderful moment experiences no fears, no tension, no -- No anything but total contentment for the first time since before -- Well, since before Thanos.

When she opens her eyes again, she’s vaguely aware that there are tears on her cheeks, but for once she doesn’t feel ashamed of them. This feels like something momentous enough to warrant that sort of emotion, even if she is not accustomed to showing it. And besides, Peter has already seen her cry. Even within her recent memory. She shivers as he reaches out and brushes away the tears, though there’s absolutely no cold in her body right now.

“Happy tears?” he asks, his voice soft and warm too. 

She nods, swallowing. “Definitely happy.”

Their legs brush against each other under the water. The tub is wide enough that they could avoid that contact if they wanted to, but she doesn’t want to. She lets their calves brush again as she adjusts in the water, finding the most comfortable position, though it seems absurd that she could get any more comfortable. She settles with one of her legs touching one of his, a sort of anchor in what’s nearly an out of body experience. 

“I am glad,” she says slowly, her voice a bit hoarse still, “that I got to experience this for the first time twice.” She’s certain that she reacted this way the first time, too, though that’s not a memory, or even a vague flash of anything; it’s just the certainty that she is the same person, and would react the same way in any time. There’s just no other way to react to this kind of bliss. 

Peter’s smile is wide and warm. “That’s a super awesome way of looking at it.” 

“I will also be glad to get used to it again,” she admits. She lets her hand brush through the layer of bubbles, delighted with the way they feel, and the way they re-form behind her touch. “Though I don’t know that I ever could.”

“I don’t think you ever loved it any less,” he says. “The first time or the thousandth time.” 

“I am -- glad I got to experience meeting you for the first time twice too,” says Gamora, the words somehow coming more easily with the warmth of the water surrounding her. Perhaps it helps loosen up emotions as well as muscles. She wants him to know these things without question, though she also wonders as soon as she’s said it whether he feels the same way. It’s easy to forget now how rocky things were between them at first, how painful her presence was for him, like a knife being twisted in so many fresh wounds.

She thinks she wouldn’t be able to fault him if he regretted it, if he wished for her other -- no, for _her_ self to never have died. In a way she supposes that she ought to wish for that too, but -- well, then neither of them would be here in this moment exactly as it is now. And right now, this moment seems nothing short of wonderful.

Peter sucks in an audible breath and then swallows. “Are you -- sure about that?”

She freezes, wondering if she’s going to regret sharing this; Peter’s reaction seems to indicate that he doesn’t agree with her, that he wishes none of this had ever happened, that she wasn’t -- 

She cuts that train of thought off quicker than she’s been able to before, and firmly reminds herself of what she’d just thought: that she doesn’t blame him if he does feel that way. How can she blame him for wishing he didn’t have to go through all that pain? And he’s still going through it, she knows. Though it’s better, that kind of pain is long-lasting and slow to heal. 

“Yes,” she says anyway, after screwing up her courage. She’s not going to take it back, and she’s going to have faith that Peter’s love for her is strong enough to withstand a difference of opinions on this. Look at everything else it’s withstood, after all. 

His leg twitches against hers, and the water sloshes slightly where his arms lay under it. He’s probably fidgeting. “Even though… Even with the way I treated you during--you know, at first? How horrible I was to you?”

“You were in pain,” she says. Instinctively, she moves her hand under the water to rest on his ankle. It twitches again, but relaxes quickly when she squeezes slightly. 

“Well yeah,” Peter allows, but doesn’t sound convinced. She’s gotten so much better at reading the subtleties of his tone. She can tell so much more than she could at first, like an unspoken language between them. 

“But?” she prompts, knowing that there’s at least one of those in his head.

He sighs, his leg twitching again, not quite as tense as before. “But -- being in pain isn’t an excuse to make other people hurt too. We’re all in pain some way or another, right? That’s -- kinda how we all got together in the first place.”

“I certainly hope we aren’t all in pain all the time,” says Gamora, though she knows what he means. She has relearned enough about the others to recognize that they all come from their own backgrounds of trauma. That is definitely one of the things that binds them all together.

“No,” says Peter. “No, I know, just--” He breaks off, struggles. “You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“I do,” she says. Then she considers something else. “I do believe that I kicked you in the groin both times upon meeting you? So perhaps you should not feel so bad about pain you might have caused me.”

He laughs, as though the sound is torn from his throat, and he shakes his head. “That’s a little different.”

“Perhaps,” she allows. “But even if the first...part of this wasn’t easy, I still…” She hesitates for a second, that fear that lives in her head telling her not to expose herself so much, not to give anybody weapons to use against her. But she’s already exposed in front of Peter, literally naked; she might as well make it in every sense of the word. 

“I got to fall in love with you all over again,” she says, finding that fear in her mind easier to quiet with each word, with the way Peter’s eyes widen, and the soft expression on his face. “That’s worth all of it, I think.” 

He opens his mouth, closes it again, bites his lip. A small sound comes from the back of his throat that even she can barely hear, and those are definitely tears welling in his eyes, clinging desperately to his lower lids as he struggles not to let them escape. 

She doesn’t even give herself time to hesitate here -- she just acts on instinct and the desire to comfort him. She moves away from the wall of the tub she’s been leaning against to scoot towards him, a hand on the edge of the tub to support herself and keep herself from just pressing her entire body against his, as she leans forward and kisses his cheek.

Peter makes another, louder sound, this one definitely a sob. He closes his eyes hard and the tears fall, quickly joined by a few more. Gamora feels something inside of her break, no longer willing -- no, no longer _able_ \-- to have any restraint in her reaction. 

She moves in a rush, directed by instinct, resting her hands on either side of his face and kissing him deeply. A full-body shudder runs through him, his eyes flying open again, wide and surprised but certainly not upset. He has to pull away for air almost immediately because of the way his chest is heaving, but she keeps her fingers against his skin, catching a few escaping tears with her thumbs. He meets her gaze and holds it for a beat, and she can see the instant where he accepts her silent permission and gives up on the last shreds of his own restraint. He kisses her again, even more desperately, his hands coming up to run over and over her bare back.

It’s her turn to make a noise, soft but just as desperate as his, into his mouth. She presses herself closer to him, craving more. She’s never reacted this way to anybody but Peter, not even close; never had this carnal need for someone’s body, like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t keep kissing him. 

Then she moves to get closer and his absolutely unmistakable erection brushes against her thigh. She pulls away from his lips with a gasp of surprise. 

“Sorry!” Peter says breathlessly, his eyes widen and concerned. He’s panting, but still he scrambles to try to shift backwards, away. “I’m sorry--”

“No!” Gamora says, moving her hands from his face to around his neck, moving with him to stay close, though the angle has changed and she doesn’t try to touch him...there again. “No, it’s okay, I was just--surprised.” She’s also surprised by how much she _likes_ it, likes knowing how much she’s affected him. A heady sort of rush spreads through her. She wants _more_. “It is okay, right?” she asks, searching his face. Perhaps he pulled away because _he_ didn’t want --

“Yeah!” he says quickly. His eyes are also roaming over her face. “Yeah, as long as it’s okay with you? I’m not trying to--to pressure you or anything, I just…”

“I know,” she assures him. She kisses him again, tenderly, and relishes the happy sigh he lets out against her lips. She re-adjusts slowly, deliberately this time, sitting on his thighs. She leans forward, as close as she can possibly get, so his erection is pressed against her abdomen, between them. 

Peter groans, long and deep, rolling his head back and baring his throat to her. She’s struck by how physically fragile he is in comparison to her, how much harm she has caused in her past and yet -- and yet he expects nothing but love from her, would never even _consider_ the possibility that she might truly hurt him. Overwhelmed, she suddenly needs to be kissing that spot, needs to have contact with all the most vulnerable parts of him at once. 

Ducking her head, she kisses the curve of his throat, which is warm and damp from the water, a bit of the flush that’s so prominent on his cheeks and chest visible here too. When he groans again, she can feel it vibrating through her and she lingers over that spot, sucking very lightly on it. That draws yet another different, wonderful sound from him, and she can feel his hips jump under her, the warmth and weight of his erection as it presses a bit further against her belly. 

“Fuck,” he pants, when she finally pulls away enough to see his face again. “And you think you don’t know how to do this.”

“I don’t,” she says honestly, though he has a point. Following her instincts appears to be serving her pretty well so far. And she can definitely see what she must have meant before, when she’d told Nebula that he is...responsive. 

“You’re just naturally incredible then,” he says. He’s still hardly caught his breath, but he dives back in to kiss her again before she can argue. And really, she doesn’t want to argue, to deflect that praise like she normally would. She lets his praise flow through her, making her feel light and warm -- no, more than warm: hot. 

She’s hot all over, really, and the only solution to that her lust-addled brain can come up with at the moment is to get even closer to Peter. That only intensifies the problem, though; it’s like the more she presses up against him, the hotter her skin feels. 

Peter’s got his hands roaming up and down her back, her sides, her arms, and his touch is magical, delightful, but she needs more. Certain that he’s holding back for her sake, she fumbles for his hand while still kissing him, then drags it to her breast. 

He makes a choked noise into their kiss, a sound she knows is good instinctively. He cups his hand around it, strokes a thumb over her nipple, and she has to pull her lips away from his to cry out, head tilting back. As if that incredible sensation isn’t enough, she can actually feel him harden even more against her. 

She has, on rare occasions, touched herself. It’s always been furtive, hurried, in stolen moments of near-privacy -- the nearest to privacy she ever got on Sanctuary, or on solitary assignments, which meant that she would have time alone but it was never guaranteed. Every other time, she’s done it out of desperation. Out of loneliness or hopelessness or the need to somehow reaffirm her existence as anything other than a weapon to be directed by others. 

It has never been about another person, has never been about real pleasure or...or _love_. _This_ , she thinks, is what it means to be silver -- perhaps not all of it, but a very important part. And that is also what’s reflected in the way his body is reacting to her touch. If he were Zehobereian, his silver would be so bright that it would be lighting up this bathroom like a supernova. 

“Good?” asks Peter, the word breaking into her thoughts. She’s lost track of what he’s asking. 

He means his hand on her breast, she realizes after a beat, the way that his fingers are still moving. He wants to hear her say it, wants to be explicitly clear, despite the fact that she’s sure her nonverbal reactions have showed him how much she’s enjoying it. She nods emphatically. “Yes. More, please.”

He chokes on air and obeys, stroking her more firmly, then in these delightful little circles that make stars burst behind eyelids she’s only just now realizing she’s closed. She pries them open because she doesn’t want to miss a second of him, of his expressions, the way he’s looking at her that makes her chest and stomach tighten. But then he brings his other hand up, so he’s cupping both her breasts at once, and her head tilts back so far she can’t see his face anyway, a noise rent from her throat she’s never heard from herself before. 

She hardly recognizes _any_ of the noises she making as her own; breathy moans, practically whimpers, that she never would have expected she could make. She’d known her breasts were sensitive from the few times she’d done this to herself, but she had no idea they could be _this_ responsive. Perhaps that’s because they only are for Peter, and whatever he’s doing. She’s lost track of the exact movements, only knows it feels absolutely wonderful. 

She’s lost in the sensation and the reverie that he’s got her in for who knows how long, before a choked noise that she _knows_ isn’t her own floats through her ears. 

She opens eyes that she hadn’t realized she’d closed again to see Peter biting his lip, an expression of rapturous, almost torturous pleasure on his face. She blinks and realizes that she’s been sort of rubbing her abdomen against him in her pleasure without realizing, and it must feel good. 

“Sorry,” she breathes, stilling her hips. She feels her cheeks flush at the idea that she’s basically just been -- what, humping him like an animal?

But no, she thinks. There is nothing wrong or shameful about what they’re doing, what she is doing. Peter is obviously enjoying it. True, sex is sacred in her culture, but it is not forbidden. It’s meant to be special, to be saved for one who is at least a potential lifemate. And isn’t that _exactly_ what Peter is? More than potential. Which means that her shame, her hesitance, is still the influence of Thanos, another way that he’s poisoned her mind. 

“Actually,” says Gamora, breaking her own reverie this time. “Actually no. I am not sorry. Unless -- I have caused you regret.”

Peter blinks. “What? Hell no! Not at all. No regret here whatsoever.” He sounds a bit tense, though, and she isn’t sure how to interpret it.

“Are you sure?” she presses. “It sounds like there may be a ‘but’ on your mind.”

“Well,” he says, “there’s a butt on my lap!”

“Peter,” she says firmly, though she has to work to repress a laugh, because that is kind of funny. 

“No, really,” he insists, a sly smile on his face. “There is one. And it’s a great one, too.” He lets his hands roam, stroking along her hips and to the lowest part of her back, but he never touches her ass. He stays right above it, carefully held away. And suddenly she understands. 

“But I told you I wanted to go slow,” she says as it dawns on her. The expression on his face confirms it. 

“Well, yeah,” he admits. “Of course. We can still go as slow as you need!”

“I think we’ve gone slow enough,” she says, surprised by how easily the words come and how completely she means them. She’s loved every second of this so far; every touch of his, every time she’s touched him. Every place and time they touch at all really; every sound and look and feeling. All of it is so agonizingly good. And she’s tired of denying herself. 

“Yeah?” Peter asks, scanning her face carefully. She can tell how badly he wants her, though not just from the look in his eyes. “Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” she says. She touches his cheek. “Though I don’t know all the things you like anymore...Or I don’t remember them. I don’t even know the things _I_ like.”

“You’re a natural, babe,” he informs her. He lets his hands slide a bit farther down, just so they’re touching the top of her ass, testing. 

“Only when I’m not thinking,” says Gamora. She’s been doing fine as long as she’s acting on instinct, as long as she isn’t thinking too much, just feeling. But as attractive as _just feeling_ might be right now, she doesn’t think it’s what she wants for their first time. Second first time. Whatever. First time _now_. 

Peter doesn’t take his hand off her ass but he doesn’t move it any lower, either. He brings his other one up to cup her cheek, his eyes gentle. “I think I kinda know what that’s like. It can be -- tough to be in your own head.”

“Oh, do you?” she asks. Her tone is light, but she meets his gaze, hoping he can see that she appreciates the consideration.

“I do,” he agrees, stroking her cheek very gently with the pad of his thumb. “And I wanna do this any way you want. So if there’s anything that would help, just tell me, okay?”

“Okay,” she says softly. “I don’t know what would help… But I like it when you touch me.” She admits it on a whisper, though she’s certain that he’s aware. Still, it feels distinctly vulnerable to say it out loud. She _likes_ being this vulnerable with him, even if it is kind of scary. 

Plus, it makes him smile. “Yeah? What if I keep touching you? Show you how good you can feel?”

She bites her lip; his tone has a teasing lilt to it at the same time he’s 100% serious. He has this unique ability to make her feel comfortable with a little humor, and she loves him for it. “I would like that.”

Then his hands slide lower, cupping her ass in full, and she surprises herself by letting out a pleased grunt. It feels better than she’d thought it would, having him touch her like that. Unlike her breasts, she hadn’t known this area of herself could be that sensitive. 

She leans forward to kiss him again and he returns it, letting her set the pace of the kiss. She does her best to let go and let her instincts continue to guide her, and the distraction of his hands helps with that. After a moment, he lets one of his hands drift off her ass and roam around to the front of her body again, back to her breast. It feels amazing, incredible, but he only does it for a few seconds before he slowly begins to slide it down the front of her body. 

Gamora catches her breath, looking down to watch his hand travel. The bubbles have mostly thinned out now, which is interesting. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she thinks it must mean that they’ve been in the tub a pretty long time. The water is still warm and still feels nice, so she is certainly not about to complain. Actually she sort of likes the way the light pink hue of the water colors their skin beneath it, the way it makes everything feel just a bit surreal. She watches Peter’s large hand travel down her abdomen, watches it still over her silver for a moment. His palm is broad enough that it almost covers the entirety of her silver blush, only the edges visible. 

When she looks up to meet Peter’s eyes, there are tears in them again. He bites his lip and smiles at her, then exhales a shaky breath that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob. 

“I love you,” says Gamora, because she can’t _not_ say it to him right now, not when she feels it so very intensely and in so very many different ways. “I love you.” 

This time the breath that catches in his throat is completely sob, but he doesn’t even pause as he leans in to kiss her desperately.

She’d expected to feel emotional when they finally did this, but it’s even more intense than she’d thought, for both of them. She kisses him back, just as desperate in every possible way. She’s got her hands in his hair, over his shoulders, cupping his face as they kiss. His hand skims even lower, all around her silver, her hips, her pelvic bones, but skirting around that area she senses he’s going to need specific permission before he touches. 

Nervous, but wanting this so badly she suddenly can’t live without it, she tilts her pelvis up towards his hand and breaks the kiss to whisper, “Touch me. Please.” 

Peter makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat, his eyes hooded and dark as he looks at her. She has the sense that he’s never said no to her when she’s said _please_. 

Sure enough, he obeys, his hand moving lower until his fingers brush over her clit, very lightly and just for a second, testing the waters. But it’s enough to make her cry out and arch towards him, like a livewire of pure pleasure has just gone through her. Before she can even ask for more -- and she finds she’s already willing to beg -- he does it again, the same pressure and speed, and drawing the same reaction from her. 

It’s odd, if she allows herself to think about it -- He knows _exactly_ how to touch her, how to awaken parts of her that she didn’t even know existed. How to make her feel things she’s never really thought possible for herself. Having Peter touch her is _nothing at all_ like touching herself -- Though perhaps there was never any way it could be, because for him this is about showing her reverence. Showing her love. She has never even tried to touch herself this way, because she has never loved herself the way that Peter loves her.

Peter strokes her clit a few more times, still very lightly, then moves his hand away to rest on her thigh. She’s confused, wonders why he’s stopping, then realizes an instant later that he wants her to move, to adjust slightly so that it’s easier for him to get his fingers where she wants them to be. She allows him to guide her. She gets a flash of memory then, of another time he did this for her. She isn’t sure whether it was the _first_ first time, but she remembers his patience, his kindness, the way he’d treated her like she was the most precious thing in the whole damn universe, like it was an honor to be the one making her feel good.

She whispers his name, wanting him to know she feels the same reverence he’s showing for her but not knowing how to verbally express it. She still has a hard time believing that reverence is directed at her, but she’s not about to question it, not when his hand is on the move again. 

He kisses her chin, then her jaw line, and whispers her name right as his fingers find her again and begin touching more firmly, though not on her clit this time. She lets out a surprised, pleased noise as his fingers circle her entrance, then other surrounding areas she’d never really paid attention to. She tended to focus on her clit when she touched herself, as that was the most expedient way to get herself off. It was never about taking her time, just getting the job done, finding a release. 

That’s not at all what Peter is doing. He’s basically worshipping her, both with his fingers and his lips, which are now kissing along her neck. She grips his shoulders, wishing she could do something with her own mouth to return the favor, aside from making small noises she can’t seem to help. She wants to make him feel good too, but he’s rapidly turning her body and mind to goo. 

She eventually gathers enough brain power to remember that her hands are capable of movement, so she sifts one through his hair, ostensibly to hold him to her neck, but makes sure to run her nails along his scalp in the process. 

Peter’s whole body jerks against her when she does, though he doesn’t miss a beat with his fingers, with the way he’s touching her. Somehow that intensifies the hot band of pleasure that’s building in her abdomen, and she finds herself rocking her hips, moving with him to the rhythm that he’s creating.

“Fuck,” he grunts when she runs her fingers through his hair again, her thumb rubbing at the spot just above the nape of his neck, where she can feel the subtle curve at the base of his skull. 

“Like that?” she asks, the sound of his voice -- of an actual word, not just a gasp or a groan -- feels like it unsticks something for her. She remembers suddenly that she can talk to him during this too. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, nodding against her neck. “That spot is -- fuck, yeah.”

“Oh, is it?” she asks warmly. She increases the pressure of her fingers against the spot, which gets another wonderful groan from him. And he returns the favor, slipping a finger into her gently at the same time he puts his thumb directly back on her clit. 

“Fuck!” she cries out, repeating his curse. The sudden pleasure surprises her into tightening her fingers in his hair, accidentally pulling on it. She’s just so overwhelmed with the sudden sensation that she can’t help it. 

Luckily, Peter doesn’t seem to mind. Far from it, in fact; the tug makes him groan rather loudly, and causes his hips to buck up, likely of their own volition. She can feel his erection brush against her thigh when he does and that only increases her desire. 

“More,” she pants, in a breathy voice she hardly recognizes as her own. A short while ago -- or a long while ago, depending on perspective -- she wouldn’t have thought her voice could sound this way: full of desire and need. And love. She’s pretty rapidly losing her ability to be driven by anything besides those things at the moment, especially because Peter obeys immediately and adds another finger, slowly but surely, stretching her out in the most delightful way. 

“Peter,” she moans. She leans her forehead against his, fighting to keep her eyes from closing in pleasure; she wants to see his face, to see the way his eyes have darkened, and the way he’s looking at her. “Feels good. Really good.” 

He knows that, she’s sure. If her reaction didn’t tell him, then the four years of experience he has on her surely would. But she feels his chest puff out, and a distinct look of pride mixes in with the lust and love on his face, so she knows she made the right decision with the praise. He speeds up his movements more and so does she, matching him again without missing a beat.

Moving with him feels like dancing. Both in the fact that they are moving together, rocking together, and that it feels so natural. She’s been fearing that she’d be awkward, that she’d be a disappointment in this -- but instead it just feels easy, just feels _right_. It feels like she’s been missing this, though she doesn’t quite remember having it before.

Her orgasm is close, she can tell, and there’s a part of her that doesn’t want it to come. She doesn’t want this to end, and for a moment she fights it, tries to slow herself down. She’s half aware of Peter’s lips against her neck, his voice in her ear encouraging her to relax, to let go. She can have this again. She can have this as often as she wants.

Peter presses his thumb against her clit, moving it in tight, tiny circles, and she allows herself to get lost in it. She twists her fingers in his hair, throws her head back as she comes, finally powerless to stop her eyes from closing as she rides the most intense wave of pleasure she has ever felt in her life.

She completely loses track of time as she rides it out, absolute bliss filling her mind to the point that she can’t focus on anything else. It’s like that heat and love and pleasure that’s been building in her abdomen has suddenly exploded all at once, filling every inch of her. It’s incredible, overwhelming. 

When she comes back to awareness, she realizes she’s clinging to Peter, arms around his neck and face buried in the hollow between his neck and shoulder. She’s breathing like she’s just run for hours and, to her embarrassment though not really her surprise, she’s crying. She’s fairly certain this happened the first time too -- the first first time -- though she doesn’t know if that’s a memory or just an educated guess. She doesn’t know how she could feel this potent mix of feelings and _not_ cry. 

Peter seems to be taking it in stride. He’s got his arms wrapped around her tight, one hand stroking soothing circles on her back. That relaxes her a bit, which also doesn’t surprise her. Whether from experience or instinct, Peter knows exactly how to comfort her. 

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I’ve got you.” She can feel the rumble in his chest and in his throat as he speaks, whispering that soothing nonsense that he’s so good at. There’s something different about it this time, though -- there’s a crack in his voice. She pulls her head back to look at him when she realizes what it is: he’s crying, too. 

“Peter?” she asks, her voice feeling odd and distant in her own ears, like she’s still on another plane of existence or something. Which is ridiculous, of course, but she can’t help thinking of this as another sort of dividing line in her life, a moment that’s changed her perception of herself, of her future. 

“Sorry,” says Peter, taking his hand off her back to wipe at his eyes. He looks a bit sheepish but certainly not upset. Not sad. He looks -- moved, she thinks is the right word. The same way she is. He runs a hand through his hair, tries to refocus himself, not entirely successfully. “Sorry, sorry. I’m okay. I’m just -- you know, emotional.”

Gamora arches an eyebrow, feeling suddenly giddy, lighter than she’s been in -- well, probably ever. “Oh, are you? I had no idea.”

His eyes widen comically in confusion; then he catches the dry sarcasm in her tone, his reaction just prolonged enough to make her wonder whether this is somehow new for her or if he’s perpetually surprised when she makes jokes. “Yeah, well. I’m kind of an emotional person. I’m sure you’re shocked to hear me admit such a thing.”

“Stunned,” she says, with so much affection in her voice she doesn’t even come close to pulling off a serious tone. She covers his cheek with her hand, wiping at a stray tear with her thumb, and leans down to kiss him softly. “Thank you,” she whispers when she pulls away, only just enough to speak. She keeps her forehead pressed to his. 

“The pleasure was all mine,” he whispers back, sounding completely sincere. She feels his hand in her hair, sifting through it, playing with the ends where they’re dangling in the water. 

“It was literally mine,” Gamora points out, making Peter chuckle. She feels the vibrations in his sternum. She shifts, wanting to feel more. That movement presses his erection between them, making both of them gasp, though it’s not exactly news to either of them that he’s hard. 

“I can make it yours too, though,” she says. She’s not quite sure where this burst of confidence came from -- the orgasm, perhaps -- but the resulting wide-eyed look from Peter pleases her. 

“Here?” he asks, choked. 

Gamora hesitates, unsure. Apparently this is about as far as that confidence has taken her, because now she doesn’t know how this is supposed to go. She’s not sure what she even wants, besides Peter. She doesn’t particularly care where; just who. “What do you think?” 

“I think,” he says contemplatively, hand trailing down her back slowly, following the ridges of her spine, making her shiver. “I think I’d like to be able to kiss you. Everywhere.”

“So...not in the water, then,” she says, her thoughts feeling sluggish as she shivers again, the vast majority of her focus still stuck on the way his fingers are traveling over her back. Her thoughts stray again, wondering whether the exquisite sensitivity she’s feeling now has anything to do with the cybernetics in her spine. Probably not. Probably it’s just that it’s Peter.

“Well,” says Peter, “I haven’t quite mastered that breathing underwater thing yet, so…” His words bring her back to the conversation they’re having. Or trying to have, anyway. 

She is still...distracted.

“So not in the water, then,” she repeats, tilting her head back as his fingers play up her neck. She slips her own hand between them, running it along his side, splaying it out across his hip. She feels the swell of the bone there, realizes that she can stretch her thumb out to play with the line of hair she’s seen so many times trailing down from his navel to disappear beneath the waistband of his pants.

He groans and his hips jerk, which makes his erection press into her again, which draws another guttural sound from him. He bites his lip, obviously struggling to focus too. “I mean, there is a really nice bed right out there.”

“True,” says Gamora, letting her hand slip lower down his abdomen, toying with the thicker patch of curls there.

Peter lets out a truly gratifying noise, a choked sort of whimper. Fascinating. “We’ll have to actually leave the tub to get there,” he points out, though he doesn’t seem overly bothered by their current position, nor does he make any move to leave the tub. 

She plays with that hair for a while, feeling its texture, mesmerized by his reaction to her touch. There’s also her own anticipation, knowing how close she is to that area where he really wants her to touch him -- where _she_ really wants to touch him. It’s right next to her hand, she’d only have to move a tiny bit. But then they might never leave this tub. 

“Okay,” she says simply, then stands up in one graceful motion, now towering over him in the tub. 

Peter at first makes a pitiful noise at the loss of contact, but then his jaw drops as he rakes his eyes over her, water sluicing down her body as she stands above him. She flushes a little at the attention, a little from embarrassment but mostly with pride and arousal; that’s a good expression if she’s ever seen one. And she has on Peter, a lot. 

“ _Tease_ ,” he accuses her, half a grin on his face as he continues to look his fill of her, as if he’s never seen her before. His hand cups the back of her knee, rubbing there in a distracting manner; she’d never have considered that area of her body sensitive before. This lends evidence to her theory that Peter simply has this ability to draw pleasure from her in surprising ways.

“I have no idea what you mean,” says Gamora, in her most innocent voice. It’s sort of true -- she hadn’t really started out touching him this way intending to tease. She was just enjoying his body.

“You don’t have to know what I mean,” says Peter, almost as though he’s aware of her thoughts. And maybe he is, in a sense. She has the feeling that they’ve had conversations like this many times before, that it is one of their _things_. 

She arches an eyebrow. “Are you implying that it is possible for one to tease without meaning to do so?”

“When it’s you?” He raises his own eyebrows in an echo of her expression. He looks particularly appealing staring up at her like this, water droplets clinging to his chest, flushed from the bath and from arousal. “Absolutely. I’m pretty sure teasing me is, like, one of your innate abilities. You’ve been a goddamn natural at it since day one.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she says. It does feel natural, easy. A lot of things about her relationship with him do, though. “But _you_ are the one who said out of the tub. I was just listening to you.”

She gives him her best innocent smile, which is not as good as his, she would bet. He grins, though. “You’re right,” he admits. “I did say that.” 

Then he stands as well, so again he’s taller than her and she has to tilt her head to look at him. Well, at his face, anyway; she returns the once-over he’d given her when she stood, letting her eyes roam all over his body, admiring the way the water drops roll off of him. He’s like a work of art, she thinks. 

Okay, so maybe it’s more of a twice-over. It’s difficult to keep her eyes off of him. 

“If you keep looking at me like that,” Peter says, voice gone husky and deep in a way that causes a spark low in her abdomen, “we’re gonna have trouble making it to the bed.” 

“I wouldn’t want that,” Gamora says hotly. Though her immediate instinct is to grab him and kiss him again, she makes herself step out of the tub. Peter follows and grabs a towel off of the rack nearby, running it quickly through the warmer before wrapping it around her. 

She sighs happily at the sensation of warmth wrapped all around her again, at the softness of the towel. It’s hardly like it’s the first time she’s experienced either of these things, even in recent memory, but all of her senses feel heightened right now. She realizes that she’s let her eyes slip closed in contentment, and when she opens them again, she finds Peter staring at her, because of course he is. He’s managed to grab his own towel but is now standing frozen with it hanging from one hand, water still dripping off his skin, his lips parted slightly.

“I changed my mind,” she says lightly. “I’m just going to stay here and cuddle with this towel.”

Peter lets out a surprised, delighted laugh, then shakes his head, feigning disappointment. “I’ve been replaced. And not even by chocolate this time.”

“Have you been replaced by chocolate before?” she asks. She has yet to try this mythical chocolate, though she’s heard him talk about it plenty. She knows it was yet another thing she loved before.

“Oh,” says Peter, in that tone that tells her he’s lying intentionally badly, wants her to get the message that he isn’t being even a little bit serious. “Nope. Never. Not once.”

She shakes her head and wraps the towel around herself, then pulls her hair onto the top of her head, wrapping it quickly with a tie. Then she holds out a hand. “You appear to require assistance drying off.”

“Oh,” he says, looking down at himself as if just realizing that he’s still wet. “I suppose I do.” He looks back up at her, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Would you happen to have any skills in that area?” 

“I am willing to try,” she says seriously. She wiggles the fingers of her outstretched hand and Peter places his towel in it. “Maybe I’ll be a natural at this too.” 

“I’m willing to bet quite a lot that you are,” he says. Despite that confidence, she finds herself a unsure, not knowing where to start. There is quite a lot of naked Peter in front of her, and she wants to touch all of him at once. 

“Lean down,” she instructs, eyeing his hair, which is dripping down his forehead and neck. She could stretch to reach it, but it would be more difficult than simply having him bend down, which he does. He attempts to maintain eye contact with her as he does, but this position places his face pretty much level with her chest, so she’s not expecting that to last long. “Good.” 

“I aim to please,” he murmurs distractedly; yep, he’s definitely noticed that eye level. That probably pleases her more than it should, but she finds she basks in his attention, adores the way he adores her. 

She carefully dries his hair, being as gentle as she’s sure he would be with her own. Though she does tousle it a bit at the end, leaving it standing on end and going every which way when she takes the towel back. It’s another thing she does without really thinking about it, but it makes Peter laugh. 

“You should always wear it like that,” she teases. She’s joking, of course, but she can’t help staring at the way a couple of his curls fall onto his forehead. His hair is getting longer, a visual reminder of the time that’s elapsed since the beginning of -- well, whatever this is. 

“Is that a Zehoberei tradition?” he asks good-naturedly, running his own hand through it to tousle it even more. He tosses his head a few times, posing like he’s in some sort of fashion advertisement. 

“It’s _my_ tradition,” says Gamora. 

“Oh, then it’s definitely a good one,” he says warmly, the tone of his voice stirring something inside of her, reminding her that as much as she might be enjoying this right now, they are supposed to be moving toward the bed for _other_ kinds of enjoyment. 

Forcing herself to focus again, she uses the towel to dry his chest and arms, reaches around to use it on his back. That leaves his lower body, which sends a thrill of both anticipation and insecurity through her. 

She must have paused longer than she thought, because Peter asks, “Do you want me to finish up?” His tone is gentle, no judgement or expectations. He’s giving her an out, she realizes, reminding her that she can stop if she wants to. 

She doesn’t want to. But Peter’s kindness gives her a boost of courage, as it has a few other times -- and probably far more times that she can’t remember. He loves her, and even if she doesn’t do this exactly right, he will still love her. 

“What kind of sub-par dryer would that make me?” she asks lightly. Peter’s lips twitch at her humor. “Besides, I am a natural at this.” 

“You totally are,” he says fondly. His pupils are wide and dark as he watches her slowly crouch down. His hands twitch at his sides. All the signs of his arousal send sparks through her. 

She starts at his hips, toweling them dry with care. She reaches around to get his ass, paying more attention to it than she needs to, but she’s certain Peter doesn’t mind. She kind of regrets that she’s touching him through the towel, rather than skin to skin, but a part of her also enjoys the anticipation that’s building. Perhaps she really is a natural tease. 

He’s still hard -- not that she’s surprised by that -- but now that he’s out of the water, she finds herself even more captivated by the sight of his erection. He’s slightly flushed there too, though in a different way than on his face and chest. There’s a delicate vein that runs along the underside of his dick, and she has to resist the urge to reach out and run her finger along it. She will later, she promises herself. Later, when she’s finished her job of drying him off, and they’ve made it back to the bed. 

Telling herself that she can’t just stare, she adjusts the towel in one hand and dries the patch of hair she’d been so taken with earlier. When she’s done that, she absolutely has to run her fingers through it again, noticing the way the curls are springing back into shape as they dry. She also notices the way he hisses through his teeth, and the way his erection jumps a bit in response, growing impossibly harder. 

She looks up to meet his eyes, and finds them squeezed tightly shut. He’s enjoying this, but also fighting to control himself. She’s struck yet again by how much restraint he’s showing, how careful he’s being to make sure that they’re taking things at her pace, that he isn’t pushing or pressuring, no matter how badly he might want more.

Overwhelmed, she quickly dries off his legs, probably doing a terrible job and leaving them wet in places. She can’t care about that right now, though; she just needs to be closer to him. She drops the towel on the floor without a care and rises to her feet quickly, grabbing his shoulders and kissing him. 

His noise of surprise is muffled against her lips, but he catches up quickly and kisses her back, matching pace with her. She wraps her arms around him and seriously considers never letting go. 

He’s breathless when they pull apart. Even she’s panting a little. “I love you,” she tells him. 

“I love you too,” he gasps. He’s looking at her like she’s responsible for every single star in the sky. 

“I believe you said something about a bed?” she says as coyly as she can manage while she’s got her arms wrapped around his neck and her body all but pressed up against him, granted with the towel she’s still got wrapped around herself between them. 

“I did,” he says, then grins a split second before he bends, getting an arm under her knees so he can lift her up. 

She might actually squeak in surprise, a noise that seems to amuse him. As he carries her into the bedroom, with one arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders, she leans in and begins kissing his neck, sucking lightly at his collarbone. His amusement quickly dissipates in favor of a groan. 

She loves that noise, she decides. She wants to hear him make it as often as possible. Fortunately, she seems to be very good at drawing it out of him; just about every place she touches him right now gets him to make some sort of pleasurable noise. Perhaps she has the same effect on him that he seems to have on her -- Perhaps everywhere that she touches him is suddenly extra sensitive. He curls his fingers into her hair and she sucks a bit harder, still not quite enough pressure to leave a mark, though she has the sudden idea that that is something she would like to do. He groans again, the sound rumbling through her, and only then does she realize that they’ve been moving and now they’ve stopped. 

“Problem?” she asks, lifting her head to meet his eyes. She thinks that probably she’s distracted him too much from walking, wonders whether it was a bad idea to do this while he’s carrying her.

She finds a look of amusement on his face, though, and he shakes his head. “Well we seem to have arrived at a bed in the road.”

Gamora frowns, confused, and then looks over his shoulder. Just as he’s said, they’ve come to the edge of the bed, and she’s been so wrapped up in touching him that she hasn’t even realized. “Oh.”

“We did say we were coming here,” Peter says lightly, but he’s definitely searching her face for any signs that this isn’t what she wants. 

“Yes, we did,” she says firmly, letting him see and hear her conviction. “Put me down?”

He kisses her fleetingly before he does so, gently setting her down so she’s sitting on the bed. She half expected him to drop her and let her bounce just to get a laugh out of her. She gets the vague, memory sort of feeling that he’s done that before -- and that she’s done the same, when she’s been the one carrying him to bed. Next time, she thinks.

She scoots back a bit so she’s sitting in the middle of the bed, legs spread out in front of her. After only a split second of hesitation this time, reminding herself that he’s now seen her naked even in _her_ experience, she undoes the towel and drops it on the floor by the bed. 

Peter reacts as he always seems to when she suddenly becomes naked: staring at her as though he’s never seen her before. In four years, he’s apparently never gotten used to it. She hopes she can always draw that look from him. 

“Come here,” she says softly, holding out an arm for him. He scrambles to obey, and only has one knee on the bed when he leans in to kiss her, trying to crawl the rest of the way into position without breaking it. She keeps a hand on the back of his neck to help him along. 

For all the times that she's seen him be goofy, seen him be clumsy, now he moves with a surprising lightness and grace. It's clear how often they must have done this, how much he loves it. He scarcely breaks the kiss at all as he climbs onto the bed, those few rogue curls of his still damp and tousled enough to flop down and tickle her forehead. She reaches up and pushes them back, raking her fingers over his scalp, which makes him groan delightfully into the kiss. 

When they finally do break apart for air, he's come to rest carefully straddling her, his whole body framing hers on the bed. She's struck yet again by his size relative to hers, by the way this position makes her feel oddly protected. Not at all trapped, as she once might have imagined. 

It occurs to her then that it's time for that pleasure she promised him, that he's waited for so patiently. Only this part she's uncertain of, can't remember at all no matter how much she tries. 

“Are you sure about this?” Peter whispers, breath brushing against her lips. 

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I am more sure of this, of you, than I have ever been of anything in my entire life.” 

His resulting smile is a bit wobbly, clearly touched. And speaking of touching…

She tips her head up to kiss him again, letting her hands roam over his back as she does. Peter’s got his own hand, the one he’s not using to brace himself above her, rubbing along her side, her hip. She follows his lead, and some of her own instincts. 

He grunts into the kiss when she grips his ass with both hands. The noise, and the fact that she’s touching him here without the towel between them, pleases her greatly. 

“I still don’t remember how to do this,” she confesses when Peter has to pull away for air. He’s kissing all over her face, like he’s worshipping her.

“You don’t have to remember to be good at this,” he tells her. “Everything you do feels good.” 

“Everything you do feels amazing,” she says. He nips lightly at her jaw and her hips buck up towards him of their own accord. He lets out a small moan in response, like a chain reaction of pleasure. 

“Just listen to your body,” he instructs, kissing her neck. “What makes you feel good.” 

Right now, her body is telling her that he needs to keep kissing her neck like this or else she’s gonna explode. “My body likes that.” 

“Mm, I had a feeling it might,” Peter drawls, doing it again. She rolls her head back to give him better access, shuddering as he pauses over her pulse point, returning the pressure she’d used earlier on him, also not quite hard enough to leave a mark. She thinks, though, that that is something she would like him to do eventually. She would like to belong to him. 

No, she already does.

He doesn’t stay in that spot for very long, though, leaving her with a moment of regret as he moves on. She doesn’t get a chance to feel too bereft, though, because the next thing she knows, his breath is brushing against her ear, sending a fresh thrill through her. He nuzzles the spot behind her ear, the same one she remembers caused _him_ to practically melt in her arms, and finds herself surprised when it does the same for her.

“What?” he asks, the words making his lips brush the spot too and drawing a fresh gasp and groan from her. His tone says that he knows exactly what he is doing to her, but wants to hear her say it anyway.

“We match,” says Gamora, reaching up to run her fingers over the corresponding spot at the back of his head. She feels an immediate swell of gratification at the noise he makes.

“We do,” he agrees, with a warm laugh.

“I like that,” she says, doing it again. He shivers. “My body wants me to touch you.”

“You already are,” he points out, though he must know what she means, because he adds, “Anything, babe. I’m all yours.” 

Her abdomen gets impossibly hotter at that, and her breath catches in her throat. “Yes,” she says, hardly recognizing her voice it’s gotten so husky with arousal. “I like that too.” 

Her hands were already all over his back, but she moves one of them around to the front of him. Their bodies are very close together, but not so close that she can’t get her hand between them easily. She lets it travel down, exploring all the skin and hair she finds in her path, noting the way Peter is biting his lip when he ducks his head to watch its progress. 

When she gets to that place where the hair gets thicker, he tenses above her. She’s pretty sure it’s not a bad thing, but she is quite inexperienced here. “Is this okay?” she asks, pausing probably less than an inch from where she’s itching to touch. 

“Yes,” Peter says quickly. His voice cracks on the word and he looks back up at her, eyes sincere. “Anything.” His body is still tense, with what she’s sure now is anticipation, even though he’s the one who knows what it’s like when she touches him like this. Still, it has been a while for him. And she gets the feeling that he might react this way every time. She hopes he does. 

She keeps her eyes locked with his as she moves her hand lower still, letting his reaction, his anticipation guide her. That turns out not to be the smoothest decision, because her fingers end up brushing his erection sooner than she’s expecting. His whole body lurches in response, though she’s only made the lightest of contact. She pulls her fingers back instinctively, but she keeps her hand more or less where it is.

“Sorry,” she breathes. “I didn’t--” Then she cuts herself off, realizing how silly it is to be apologizing when they have _just_ established that this is exactly what they both want. She shakes her head and sighs. “Wait, no. I am _not_ sorry.” 

Peter laughs softly, full of warmth. “I love you. Don’t be sorry for anything.” 

He leans down to kiss her lips again, and she decides she is not going to question herself or wait any longer. She stretches out her hand again, intentionally runs her fingers over the length of his erection. He moans into the kiss, responding with his whole body, but this time she’s expecting it. She likes the effect she’s having on him, the incredible heat of his skin under her fingers, reminding her of the way her own abdomen feels. She wraps her hand around him, tries a cautious stroke.

“Ah, fuck,” he grunts into the kiss, so she feels the curse as much as she hears it. Apparently he’s too overwhelmed to carry on kissing her, because he rips his lips away and buries his face in her neck when she strokes him again, then again. He continues making those delightful noises, now muffled against the skin of her neck. Oh, yes, she likes this _a lot_. 

There are probably techniques for how to do this, ways to touch him that are better than what she’s doing now. Ways she probably knew before. But Peter is certainly not complaining about the way she’s touching him, and for right now, she wants to explore. So she does; she strokes him up and down, then traces her fingers all around his erection, wanting to know how every inch of it feels. He’s warm and hard and so responsive. 

She’s not at it for very long when Peter lets out a choked noise against her neck and says, “Mora. Babe. If you want any more, you’re gonna have to stop.” 

“Am I?” she murmurs. Part of her wants to keep going until he feels the same pleasure he gave her in the tub. But a larger part of her really does want more; a lot more. There will be plenty of time to do this later, a thought that makes warmth flood through her. She gives him one more slow stroke before pulling her hand back. 

“Fuck,” he breathes again, biting his lip. “Yeah, that’s -- that’s better.” Only it doesn’t look better. In fact, it looks so far from better that it’s almost comical. His face is crinkled up in concentration, his fingers twisting in the sheets near her head. He looks positively agonized, and she thinks she understands, can only imagine what it would have felt like for him to have stopped touching her in the middle of everything in the tub. She also understands the physiology of this, at least in theory. She understands why she can’t both give him this and have more right now, why it has to be a tradeoff. Still, the way he looks right now is...oddly attractive. She wonders whether she ought to feel bad for having that thought.

“Can I -- do something to help?” she asks uncertainly. At least half a minute must have gone by in silence between them, and he doesn’t seem any closer to being -- well, she isn’t exactly sure _what_ he’s trying to be. 

His eyes snap open and he smiles a bit sheepishly. “Well, I’d say you could try to be really un-sexy for a minute, but that’s pretty much physically impossible, so…”

Gamora thinks hard for a moment, unable to resist a challenge now that he’s said it’s impossible. “Drax turds?” she offers.

He laughs and makes a face. “Well, that’s pretty damn un-sexy,” he informs her. “But it doesn’t make _you_ any less sexy.”

“Well,” she says solemnly, patting his cheek. “If even that doesn’t do it, you might just have to live with my sexiness.” 

“I will,” he says, laughter gone, replaced by that serious reverence he directs at her so often. She still doesn’t understand how she can possibly live up to it, but she finds it much less intimidating than she did just weeks ago. “Happily.”

And really, how can she resist kissing him? She doesn’t even try to, just grabs the back of his head and pulls him back to her. He grunts and returns the kiss eagerly, without a complaint, even though this is pretty counterproductive to his whole trying to calm himself down thing, which she’s now figured out is what he was trying to do. 

“I don’t want you to try to think of other things,” she tells him, when they break apart so he can breathe. She’s pretty sure he’s not, judging by the way he’s looking at her. There’s also the flush that’s spreading all the way down his chest. And his erection, pressed between them; she arches up and he bites his lip. “I just want you, whatever you can give me right now.” 

“I will give you anything you want,” he says, like he really would. And she believes him. 

“I want --” She considers, trying to come up with the words, to make a decision when she suddenly wants _so much_ all at once. It isn’t the first time she’s felt this way tonight, and she has the distinct impression that it won’t be anywhere near the last, either. 

“You want?” he prompts gently, touching her cheek with his free hand. It’s shaking slightly, but is still so very gentle.

She swallows and forces herself to say the words she knows are true, even though they make her feel more insecure than anything else they’ve done up until this point. “I want you inside of me.” She can’t quite help the face she makes at hearing herself say it aloud, then decides she owes him an explanation. “That feels -- like something someone else should be saying. Not because I don’t want it, just -- It doesn’t -- Feel like a thing I should be able to have.”

“You should have everything you want,” he says fiercely. And with the way he’s looking at her, she could almost believe him. She wants this far too much to think about denying herself. Or denying him. At least not anymore. 

“Then I would like to have this please,” she whispers. 

“Anything,” he says, then kisses her passionately. She’s kind of expecting it to happen right then, especially when he shifts during their kiss and spreads her legs apart a little. But then his hand is trailing up her thigh, drifting up, and she breaks the kiss to gasp as he touches her again, the way he had in the tub. 

“That’s not--” she says, interrupted by a gasp when brushes her clit. “That’s not the part of you I meant.”

He chuckles, but it’s strained. “Just making sure you’re ready.” They both groan when he slides a finger inside of her, and clearly his query is answered. Her face heats from the pleasure, and a little because of how very wet she is. She tells herself that is nothing to be embarrassed about. He does this to her. It’s a good thing. 

“So--what do you think?” she asks, also strained when he adds another finger. And she’d thought she was wired before; now this combination of pleasure and anticipation makes her feel like she’s about to start giving off sparks. 

“Seems that way,” Peter grunts. He pulls his hand away and she debates stabbing him for it. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, unable to contain the slight accusation in her voice. She’s certain that he knows what he’s doing. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe he is also a natural tease, and maybe he is getting even for the ways she teased him earlier.

“Just -- thinking,” says Peter, surprising her. He actually doesn’t sound like he’s being cheeky now, doesn’t sound like he’s trying for retribution or anything like that. So maybe she won’t stab him, then.

“Thinking about?” she prompts, arching an eyebrow expectantly. 

“Well,” says Peter, “we could just -- do it like this. But I don’t know if I want that. I kinda want to be able to touch you more.”

“Oh,” says Gamora, taken aback once again. Somehow this whole time she has only been picturing it this way, with him on top of her, in control. Somehow that is always how she has imagined sex. Of course it makes sense, that they must have tried other ways. That perhaps they even preferred them. “What would that be like?”

“Well, it could be lots of different ways,” he says, confirming that part of her theory. “They each have--you know, different benefits. Some allow more touching than others.”

“I would like to be able to touch you,” she says, because that is a thing she does know. 

Peter grins. “Then let’s--” He doesn’t finish that sentence, instead choosing to demonstrate. Hands on her shoulders, he grabs her and flips them so they’re both on their sides, facing each other, pressed very close together. Her arms go around his shoulders in an instinctive movement; they’ve cuddled like this a few times in her experience, though this obviously isn’t quite the same. 

“How does this work?” she asks. Though, when considers it and her flexibility, she sort of figures it out for herself even as she’s asking the question. She moves her leg so her thigh is resting over his hip, and thinks about how much higher she could actually get it, how many possibilities there might be to do different variations of just this position. 

For now, this seems to be what Peter meant, because his grin widens. 

“Yeah,” he says, voice deep and low, practically a grunt. “Like that.” He puts his hand on her thigh to adjust her, move it just a bit higher. Then he shifts his own hips and she gasps because she can feel him, right there pressed against her, though not inside her, not yet. Despite the expression of near crazed desire on Peter’s face, he’s holding back, almost certainly for her sake. 

“Peter,” she breathes, hand going to his hair. “Please.”

His throat works when he swallows. Seemingly beyond words, he nods, and only has to move an inch to kiss her as he slowly pushes his way inside her. Peter groans into the kiss, the sound somehow more guttural, more desperate than any he’s made so far. It takes her a beat to realize that she’s making sounds too; hers are softer, more gasp or whimper than moan. 

She’s imagined what this might feel like -- the past few days, she’s spent so much time imagining it that she’s even wondered whether she might be remembering some. But now she’s certain that isn’t the case, because _this_ is like nothing she has ever experienced -- at least not within her memory. It’s nothing like having his fingers inside of her either, is so much more intimate, so much more intense -- just so much _more_. 

“You good?” he asks, when he finally breaks the kiss. He’s panting like he’s just sprinted across the ship, like the few inches it took to push inside of her were far, far more. The effort is what it’s taking for him to keep still, she knows -- in fact his thighs are _shaking_ with it, but he is _not_ going to do anything before she is ready, and somehow _that_ is the most overwhelming thing of all.

“Yes,” she manages, her throat tight. “Yes, I -- I am -- _so much._ No, _you_ are so much.”

“So are you,” he says earnestly. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” she echoes. She’s really gonna start crying if they keep going like this, and Peter’s eyes are not particularly dry either. So she hitches her thigh up a little more, changing the angle and making herself gasp and Peter grunt and bite his lip, hard. 

“Careful with that mouth,” she says breathlessly. “I like it.”

“Anything for you,” he says, letting his lip go and smiling at her, besotted. Which is not an expression she ever would have imagined could be aimed at her before Peter.

“Then show me how this is done,” she says, shifting her hips again, only partially to tease and spur him on. Mostly, she’s enjoying the feeling of him inside her, how full and stretched she feels, and how very close to him. 

Peter grunts again, then slowly moves his hips back, pulling a little ways out of her before thrusting back in, startling a noise of pure pleasure from her. He does it again, pulling back a little farther before pushing back in. Then again, and again, until she’s practically moaning with every movement, the sensation so much more than she could have imagined. 

She tilts her hips to help him out, moving to meet his thrusts, matching his rhythm on instinct. He groans louder at that and moves faster in response. 

Somewhere between all the moaning and thrusting, she finally takes advantage of this position and touches him more. She lets her hands roam all over his back, his ass, threading up into his hair. She scrapes her nails against his scalp to reward him for a harder thrust and he whimpers. 

She loves that sound. She loves all of the sounds he makes. But that one in particular is so vulnerable, so trusting that it simultaneously makes her want to give him everything he’s ever needed and overwhelms her with how fully he is willing to give himself to her. 

Peter continues to vary the way he’s moving, but she finds that it becomes increasingly familiar, a rhythm forming between them that’s not entirely regular but smooth all the same. She’s reminded again of the way it feels to dance with him, to sway to a beat, their bodies working together like they have never known anything else.

He’s touching her in other places too, she realizes belatedly. And of course that’s the beauty of this position, the reason he chose it in the first place. She’s just been so caught up in the sensation of him moving inside of her that all the rest just seemed a part of that. He’s got one hand in her hair, she realizes now, weaving gently in and out of it. The other is playing over her back, drawing a line down her spine to the curve of her ass and then back up again. Completing that movement, he shifts it around between them, finding her breast.

She sucks in air through her teeth, surprised at the way that makes everything she’s feeling, not just his contact with her breast, feel more intense. It’s like he’s sent a jolt of lightning through her that centers right on where they’re joined, making everything sharper. 

“Fuck,” she breathes, the word startled out of her. She leans back so he has more room, just her upper body so they stay perfectly connected. To her delight he cups her entire breast and begins stroking the nipple. She’s rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thoughts, everything a blur of sensations and -- “ _Peter_.”

He grunts in response, probably not having many coherent thoughts himself. He pinches her nipple just right and she cries out. 

“ _Peter_!” she repeats. “Can we--faster? Please?”

“Anything,” he groans, and then his thrusts come faster and she meets them without even having to think about it, chasing that tightening feeling in her belly with the rhythm she seems to need. 

She curses again, surprising herself with the frequency of it but other than that, paying it no mind. She no longer has control of what comes out of her mouth, or the volume of her cries. It all just feels too good to care about anything else. 

“You gettin’ close?” he grits out, each word punctuated by a ragged gasp of breath. 

She has the feeling that he _knows_ her orgasm is close, is practically on her already, much as she wants to make this last. Still, he needs to hear it from her, she thinks, because he is holding back too, making sure as he has all night -- no, since the day they met, she’s pretty sure -- that they are going at her pace. 

“Yes,” she pants, that realization driving her even closer to the edge. “Yes, yes, please.” She has no idea what she’s begging for, in truth, only knows that she needs _more_.

Peter does seem to know what she means, and knows exactly what to do for this part too, because of course he does. She wonders, as he speeds up even more, sweeps the pad of his thumb back and forth over her nipple in a matching rhythm, how she ever thought it would be a _bad_ thing that he remembers how to do this.

“You--you too?” she pants, half a question, half insistence, because this needs to be about him too. 

She probably doesn’t need to be concerned about that, judging by the increasingly loud sounds he’s making, and the expression of strained pleasure on his face. He nods anyway and grits out, “Yeah. Fuck.” 

That, too, drives her higher. The final straw, though, is when Peter grabs her thigh again to shift the angle, pulling her closer to him so that his pelvis brushes against her clit with every thrust. 

“Peter!” she gasps, overcome. She scrambles to grip his shoulders to steady herself against the pleasure that’s flooding through her rapidly, uncontrollable, nearly agonizing in its intensity. 

It only takes a few more thrusts before her body can’t take it anymore. It starts where they’re joined, travels up and explodes in her abdomen, then takes over her entire body in waves of pleasure that cause her to cry out wordlessly and clutch Peter to her as tight as she can. He continues to move within her as she rides it out and she buries her face in his neck, her anchor in the storm. 

She’s still pulsing around him when she feels his rhythm falter, speeding up for a moment before he stills completely. He groans in her ear, clutching her as tightly as she’s clutching him as he joins her over the edge. 

This time she isn’t at all surprised to find that she’s crying -- partly because it happened before, but also because it’s all just _so much._ She’s still clutching him tightly as she starts to come down from the crest of the wave, when she starts to become aware of the room around them again, of the bed beneath them. She forces herself to loosen her grip just a little, so she’s holding him rather than clinging to him. There are still tears slipping down her cheeks, but her breathing is beginning to even out. She decides that’s okay, that crying right now is not all that different from any of the other releases she’s allowed herself tonight. 

She’s also not surprised when she feels a tear hit her shoulder, followed by Peter’s wet cheek pressed to the side of her neck. Peter’s already cried several times tonight out of happiness, and tears hadn’t exactly been scarce before now either. She’s come to realize that one of the things she loves so much about him is how emotional he is, and how open he is with those emotions. It’s the kind of brave vulnerability she never thought she’d admire, let alone wish for herself. But now she finds herself taking inspiration from him, reminding herself not to be ashamed of the fact that she’s crying along with him. This night has been a lot. Really, it’s no surprise that either of them is crying. 

Certain though she is that he’s crying from positive emotions right now, she rubs soothing circles on his back. She’s managed to catch her breath and stay her tears enough to speak, so she whispers to him. “Thank you. You’re so good to me, Peter. I love you so much.”

His body is wracked with a sob then, but she can hear the smile in his voice when he chokes out, “Thank _you_ ,” into the crook of her neck, where his face is still buried. “I love you too.” 

His voice is significantly more choked up than hers, so out of concern, she gently pries his head off of her shoulder so she can get a better look at him. His face is covered in tears, fresh ones leaking from his eyes at an astonishing pace. But he’s smiling as wide and sincere as she’s ever seen him. 

“You good?” she asks, realizing that she’s echoing the words he’s said to her so many times before. She’s echoing the intent, too: even though she’s certain she knows the answer, she isn’t going to be satisfied until she hears him say it. It’s far too important.

“Yeah,” he says softly. The word slips out of his mouth as more tears fall, and he huffs out a breathy laugh, like he can’t quite believe he’s saying it, or maybe feeling it. “Yeah, I -- I’m _really_ good.”

“You’ve been through so much,” says Gamora, because she can’t help thinking that’s at least a part of what’s going on here. How can it not be when her...situation...is the reason he’s had to wait so long for this?

“Yeah,” he agrees, but then shakes his head, that same awed look in his eyes as he laughs again. “Yeah, I know, but -- but I’m _good_.” He drops his head back down onto her shoulder, resting his forehead against the side of her neck for a moment. Then he lifts it a bit, nuzzling the skin there before pressing a kiss to her throat. She shivers pleasantly and curls her fingers into his hair, enjoying the predictable noise that he makes in response.

“Are _you_ good?” he murmurs. She’d have thought that would be obvious, with the fantastic orgasm and all, but she was also crying, so. A fair question, she supposes. 

“I’m very good,” she assures him, petting his hair, letting her fingers sift through in a way meant to comfort rather than to arouse. She doesn’t know how she knows the difference between the ways, but her fingers seem to know all on their own. “I’m more than good. I am...so grateful I have you, Peter.”

“God, me too,” he breathes, a lot of intense feeling in those three words. He lifts his head again to kiss her, though he’s still crying. She kisses him back, the kind of lazy, content kiss she’s never had before -- but senses that she actually _has_ , and likely will have a lot more. 

Peter’s tears mean it doesn’t last long, though, as he has to pull away to breathe, and to let out a sob he can’t seem to keep in. He’s still smiling. Can’t seem to stop. “I swear I don’t cry every time.” 

She pats his hair gently. “I wouldn’t care if you did.” She kisses his cheek. “You took such good care of me, Peter. Let me take care of you.” 

“You took care of me, too,” he says, but he doesn’t argue, lets his head sink back onto her shoulder where he continues to cry. She holds him tight, and he holds her. 

Here, now, stolen away from it with Peter, everything feels right with the universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed ;)) We're gonna be taking a break for the holidays, and hopefully we'll be able to catch up during that time. We'll see you guys in January!! Happy holidays!


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Sorry this update took so long! The holidays were a v busy time. Thanks for being patient with us! :)

Peter is dreaming.

It’s a good one this time, although those have been getting more and more common lately. This is one of the tantalizingly blissful variety that always leaves him aching with loss when he wakes, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to enjoy it while it lasts.

In the dream, they’re in the tub, surrounded by warm water, bubbles, and candles. The bubble bath Gamora’s chosen smells like chocolate, which she loves because she can tease him with the way it always makes him crave candy, and because that usually means she gets candy after their bath too. The candles smell vaguely sweet and spicy, a combination that he wouldn’t have imagined would work well, but of course it does because Gamora picked it. 

She’s sitting behind him this time, his head on her shoulder and her hands all over his chest and sides, massaging gently. She has her eyes half-closed as he watches her, looking relaxed and happy and so full of love, content just to touch him, to care for him.

Even as he thinks that he never wants this moment to end, it starts to fade. The colors and the smells and the sensations dim, though he does everything he can to get them back.

It never works, and this time is no exception. But even as he can feel himself coming back to awareness, he has the sense of being surrounded by warmth and love and Gamora even though he knows the dream wasn’t real, that he’s not in a bathtub with her. At least not right now. But he can _feel_ her. 

He blinks his eyes open past the sleep that still weighs them down and there she is. She’s lying on her side with her head propped up on her hand, her arms and shoulders bare, the rest of her hidden beneath the blanket. She smiles shyly. 

“Good morning,” she says softly. 

“Morning,” he says, voice raspy with sleep. He blinks a few more times to make sure she’s not gonna disappear; he’s had to do that pretty much every morning since they started sharing a bed again, but he’s a little extra afraid of it right now because of how incredible last night was. She remains here, though, and if he didn’t know better, this could be any morning from their four year relationship, with her waking before him and watching him sleep. It’s so familiar he could nearly cry, but he’s trying really hard not to do that every five minutes around her. 

"What is it?" she asks, because of course she can tell that he's emotional. She always could. Always can. She reaches out to brush his cheek with the backs of her knuckles, like she might be wiping away tears that have yet to fall. And in case that contact wasn't enough to totally break down any shred of composure he might have been able to muster, the movement causes the blanket to fall to the side, exposing her upper body. She looks down at herself as she realizes what's happened, then shrugs and stretches luxuriously, arms over her head. 

"It's--" he starts, then finds that his voice cracks and he has no breath to continue. It isn't just the sight of her naked, though of course it's that too. But what's really got his voice caught on a ball of emotion is her newfound comfort at being this way in front of him. Well, new to her now. So very, very familiar to him. 

"Peter?" she prompts again, starting to look a bit concerned. 

"It's nothing bad," he says hastily, not wanting her to lose any of that happy, relaxed glow. "It's -- I just -- I really missed this, you know?"

“Sex?” she questions. 

“No!” he says quickly. Too quickly. She doesn’t sound upset, just curious, but he still doesn’t want her to think that’s all he cares about. “Well -- yeah, sex too. I mean, we’re so good at it. How could I not miss it?” 

“Peter,” she chides gently, but with a little smile that makes him full on grin. 

“You can’t deny it, can you?” he says. He rolls onto his side facing her and traces his fingers along the arm she has stretched over her head. Her skin is soft and warm from sleep. 

“I have no frame of reference,” she says. Before he can become too concerned about that statement, she adds, “But no, I cannot.” 

“Good,” he says, relieved. Apparently he did have time to get a little concerned. He searches her face, finding nothing but contentment and affection, but still. “You’re not--you don’t regret anything we did, do you?”

“Of course not,” she says. She grabs his hand and brings it to her mouth so she can kiss the back of it, which makes his throat close up again. “I was only teasing you, Peter. I may only regret that we didn’t do it sooner. Or, well...you know what I mean.” 

"Well good," says Peter. "I would much rather it be that than the other way around. I'm glad we waited until you were ready.”

“I feel a little silly,” she admits, casting her eyes downward. She’s still holding onto his hand, though, very gently with both of hers. Her fingers are toying with his in a way that makes him think she doesn’t realize what she’s doing. Somehow the absent ease of it makes him ache even more with familiarity: another simple thing, so routine that he hasn’t even realized how much he’d missed it until now, when she’s started doing it again.

Peter swallows hard, still willing himself not to cry, to keep it under control so that she doesn’t have to change her focus, to make this about him. He has been working _so hard_ to do that for so many days now, but he’ll do it for the rest of his life if that’s what it takes. He owes her that and so much more. “Silly?” he prompts. “About what?”

She shakes her head. “Just that -- I was so afraid of disappointing you. That I thought I needed to -- be more. Remember more, before we -- But that was silly. You told me that it would be fine, and it was. More than fine.”

“I would hope so,” he says lightly. “Cause I can do way better than fine.” He waits for her affectionate eye-roll before continuing. “You know, you were worried about disappointing me the first first time, too.” 

“Yeah?” she says, only half a question, almost like she might remember. Or he might have told her this already. 

He nods. “Mhmm. Which is just insane, because everything you did was incredible. Everything you _do_ is incredible. You’re the best at sex, babe.” 

“Peter,” she says, avoiding his eyes. But she’s smiling in that shy way she gets sometimes, that melts his heart. 

“For real, Mora,” he insists. “Sex with you is the best I’ve ever had in my life, and I _do_ have a frame of reference.” 

She looks like she’s considering, and he questions whether he should have alluded to the fact that he had more prior experience than her. But she still doesn’t seem upset. 

“I think I might remember some of that first first time,” she says quietly. 

“Yeah?” he asks eagerly, excited as always when she remembers something. 

“I had a dream last night,” she explains. “I think it might be...real. You--you touched yourself for me? Because I was nervous and I wanted you to show me how you do it.”

“I did!” he says, excited because that verifies that it was a memory, and of course he wants her to get all of those back, to reclaim every little shred that was taken from them by Thanos. But it also makes him feel decidedly flushed when he realizes what he’s reacting to, because that moment was so...well, intimate. The most intimate, trusting thing he’d ever done in his life, up to that point. 

He takes a breath and decides that he needs to offer her more than two syllables and a lot of blushing. “That was -- I was really nervous too. Not just about that part, although definitely about that part, because it wasn’t, you know, anything I’d ever done in front of another person before.”

“But you did it for me,” says Gamora. “Because you wanted to help me feel comfortable.”

“Yeah,” says Peter. “Yes. And it was awesome, you didn’t just watch, you took care of me too.”

“I remember,” she says. “But -- You said you weren’t just anxious about that part?”

“No,” he agrees. “No, I was anxious about all of it. It felt -- so much bigger and more important than anything else I’d ever done. I didn’t wanna mess up either.”

“You didn’t,” she tells him. She laces their fingers together. “Either time.”

He smiles, happy for the reassurance, despite the fact that it’s been four years -- nine years, dammit -- since that original first time. “You didn’t, either. You never could.”

“I think I could have, if it weren’t for you,” she says. He opens his mouth to reiterate that she has done nothing wrong ever in her life, but she squeezes his hand to head him off and continues. “Really, Peter. You were so kind and gentle and patient with me. Both times, but especially last night because I know this…what happened to me hasn’t been easy on you.”

“Mora,” he says. This time he brings their hands up to his lips to kiss the back of hers; he needs a few seconds to gather his power of speech, and to stave off the water welling in his eyes. “I… Look, if you forgot every single day, I would spend every single day reminding you how much you are loved. How much I love you.”

“I don’t think I could ever forget,” she whispers. Her eyes are shining a little with unshed tears as well. “Not really. I feel like your love is a part of me now, somehow.”

It’s getting extremely difficult to hold back the tears. “You too,” he says vehemently, though his voice is low and hoarse. “You are the absolute best part of me.” He kisses her then, feels her other hand come cup his cheek. By the time he pulls away, there are tears on his face. 

She touches his cheek gently, catching a couple of the tears with the pad of her thumb. It’s such a familiar gesture and yet it feels like a small miracle in its own right. He has to swallow hard again, a few more tears falling even as she tries to wipe them away. 

“It still feels like that for you?” she asks, her voice small and as full of emotion as his has been feeling. “I mean, even -- after everything?”

“Of course it does, baby,” he says immediately, and now he doesn’t even care that his voice cracks. He can’t blame her for questioning this, knowing her past, knowing the way Thanos has poisoned her thoughts, knowing how his own pain and grief and confusion have probably played into these doubts. “Absolutely it does. You are the best part of me right here and right now and in every other timeline or reality or whatever the hell they are. I know that for sure.”

She nods slowly, takes her own shaky breath, her voice watery when she speaks again. “And does it -- Does it feel the same now? Compared to -- you know, before everything -- Before?”

“Does what feel the same?” he asks, having trouble following. “My--feelings for you?”

“Yes,” she says. Her mouth twists in that adorably frustrated way she has, when she’s trying to find the words for something but can’t. “You--feeling that I am a part of you. Is that the same as it was before all of this?” 

“Of course it is,” he says firmly. “Somehow I feel it stronger every day. It’s always been like that, for the whole four years, because you are you, no matter what memories you have or what year it is or isn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that right away, this time. But I loved you from the second I met you, before you even knew me at all.”

“Didn’t you tell me that I tried to kill you the first time we met?” she asks, but her smile is full of affection and emotion. “And this time I...well.” 

“Still,” he insists. “No matter what. I have enough love for you to fill every single universe that could possibly exist.” 

“Oh.” Gamora clears her throat, an overwhelmed with emotion sort of sound. He can certainly relate. But she only avoids his eyes for a second, then meets them again with a teasing glint in them to match the shimmer from the tears. “You’re kind of a sap, aren’t you?”

He grins. “More than kind of.” 

"I love you," says Gamora, sniffling a bit. "I love you and your sap."

"I know," Peter breathes, then realizes that she doesn't remember Star Wars, doesn't remember why that's a thing that he'd say in response. She doesn't remember why it's special. He can't help the pang of sadness he feels at that -- so much of this morning has felt easy and familiar, has felt like they might just have traveled back through time somehow. But of course he knows that isn't true. It won't ever be true again. But he is not going to let those things hurt her, or ruin this moment. "I love you too."

"But some things aren't -- exactly the same, are they," she says, not quite a question. She's studying him, and he has the sense that he so often does that she can see into his mind, can understand things about him that he hasn't yet himself. "Maybe your feelings, your sap, the strength of them hasn't changed but -- I am different in some ways. Even if I remember it all eventually, it will never be exactly the same. Never like -- Thanos didn't happen."

“I know,” he says, even though he’s actually just sort of realizing that. Well, no; he did know it before, he just didn’t know that he already knew it. Now that she says it, though, the pieces click pretty obviously into place. 

“Do you?” she asks. She doesn’t sound skeptical, more curious. 

“Yeah,” he says confidently. “It’s like… It’s like Nova Prime said! This version of you, right now, is different from the Gamora I first met. But that Gamora was also different from the Gamora I first kissed a couple months later. And that one is different from the one who took care of me when I had the Centaurian Flu a year after that. And the Gamora is different from the one two years later, and three, and four. And I’m different too! But we’re still, you know...us.” 

She’s looking at him with wide eyes, but he’s got too much steam to slow down. “And we still love each other! So really, we get to fall in love with each other all over again like, every day… Well, okay maybe not every day. Maybe we don’t change that fast. Every week, we fall back in love.” 

She’s practically gaping up at him now, a look he’s pretty sure is usually on his face. There’s some extra tears on her cheeks too. He feels his own cheeks heat up; he hadn’t quite realized what a speech that was. “Peter Quill. You are more than a sap. You are a _romantic_.” 

"Well duh," says Peter, then takes a little bow, mostly just ducking his head and making a flourishing motion with one of his hands. "Being a romantic is a Star-Lord specialty."

Gamora arches an eyebrow, though she doesn't really look anything resembling surprised. "Oh is it now?"

He nods. "Absolutely. My mom taught me from a very early age. Always was one of the best things about her."

Her face softens, the way it pretty much always does whenever he mentions his mother. That was one of the very first things he'd loved about her, really. "Well, then you do an excellent job of honoring her memory."

"Thank you," he whispers, his throat tight. 

She leans in and kisses his cheek very tenderly, lingering even though he's got a few rogue tears falling again in spite of his best intentions. She looks serious when she pulls away, though, studying him with that familiar look. "I mean it, though. You have a knack for saying all of the right things, making all of this seem like it's just so -- easy. I know that it isn't, Peter. It can't be. Even if we both know that we are the same in ourselves and to one another, it is still hard."

“I know it’s hard!” he assures her, totally prepared to be serious. But then the joke just pops into his head, and though he’s able to resist saying it out loud, he can’t help _thinking_ it. They’re naked in bed, how could he possibly not think about that when he says _it’s hard_? 

So he snorts out a laugh, trying to repress it. Gamora looks confused for just a second before she must catch on, because she sighs deeply and gives him a Look. “Really, Peter?”

“I’m sorry!” he says, still poorly holding in laughter. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But you know...it’s also true. I mean, I woke up to you naked next to me.” 

She rolls her eyes, but she also smiles and laughs, which is one of his favorite Gamora reactions ever. “You are ridiculous.” 

“I know,” he says, sobering up a bit. “I know. And I do also know that it’s...difficult. I was super serious about that!” 

“When I realized,” she says slowly, eyes on their connected hands, “how I felt about you, I was afraid that you would always be hoping I was my old self; the same Gamora you first knew. That you wouldn’t be able to love me for how I am right now.” He opens his mouth, about to vehemently assure her that that’s not true, but she holds her other hand up and puts her finger on his lips to stop him. “I know I was wrong now.”

"Well that's good," says Peter, though he has the distinct sense that's not the end of what she has to say. Still, he has to be absolutely surer than sure. "Because it's not true. I was wrong too, back at the beginning. I was just hurt."

She nods. "I know. And I forgive you, like I said last night. I have no regrets about getting to know you again, getting to fall in love with you again. But I also think-- you are still hurting. It might be better now -- I think it is much better now -- but it is still there."

Peter takes a breath and has to physically restrain himself from totally denying it. She's right, of course, which is just one more sign that she is perfectly Gamora. Lying or otherwise trying to keep it from her won't work. He knows far better than that. "Yeah, I mean -- it's like you said before. What he did to us sucked. And -- and I love what we have now, but it --"

"But there are some things I am still missing," Gamora interrupts, finishing the thought for him. "Things that would help you to have from me."

“You are not missing anything,” he says, more than prepared to defend her from herself. He’s been doing it for years. “You are absolutely perfect the way you are no matter what.” 

“I--thank you,” she says, in that awkward tone that means she doesn’t know what to do with that praise. She’ll get more used to it as time goes on, again. “But I didn’t mean personality wise. I meant more...Things you are missing from me. About me. Things I’m not comfortable doing, or don’t know how to do, or don’t know that you want me to do. Things about our relationship that you’re used to but I’m not anymore.” 

“Oh,” he says. He’s well past feeling dumb for jumping so quickly to her defense; he’ll never regret that. “Well...Our relationship is kinda at the beginning again, so of course we’re not doing the stuff we were like two years in, or whenever.”

“It’s not exactly the beginning, though,” Gamora says. “That’s part of my point. It’s different from the beginning, and different from the rest of it. Because to you it’s been years, to me it’s been months. But also not just months, because I know the four years happened, even if I don’t remember most of it. It’s weird. Difficult even to figure out how to describe it.” 

"Well yeah," he allows. "It's different, like we said. Not exactly new or old, and not -- not moving toward either one of those at all. You don't have to apologize for that, babe. That's not anything either of us can control, it just is the way it is."

"I'm not apologizing," Gamora says immediately, tipping her chin upward in that achingly familiar gesture of stubbornness, rebelliousness. "That's not my point."

Peter opens his mouth, closes it again and tries not to kick himself for the way he seems to be struggling to get on the same page. "Okay. Well -- good. Good that you're not. But -- what is your point?"

"My point is, I don't think it is out of our control," she says. "My point is that if there are things you need or want and I am not doing them or haven't remembered yet, then maybe you could tell me what some of them are. Maybe you can help me find those parts of myself again too."

“Oh,” he says stupidly. The idea is appealing, but his fear of screwing up is hard to shake, especially when he thinks about what she’s just said, and how much he’s hurt her during this process. “I don’t want to make you feel like I’m expecting you to be someone different though, you know? Like, your old self instead of who you are right now.” Not that it’s never occurred to him that he could do this before, though. He’s told her plenty of stuff that she hasn’t remembered. But he’s realizing now that most of that was just stuff that she liked to do for herself, not really things that pertained to him or anyone else. 

“We’ve had such a long relationship,” she points out, which makes him smile. After so long, it still does. “Surely that means we communicated, right? Told each other the things we wanted or needed?” 

“You’re right,” he acknowledges, his smile turning into a grin. 

“I’m sure we can tell the difference,” she says, “between trying to turn me into someone else and explaining what you need in a relationship. You make me so happy, Peter. I want to do everything I can to do the same for you.” 

“You do!” he says, because that is completely true. No one has ever made him happier than Gamora. “But I will definitely try to tell you stuff.” 

“Tell me something right now,” says Gamora, because of course she does. He probably should have seen that coming, it’s such a stubborn, competitive, _Gamora_ thing to do. She’s long since discarded the sheet she had been using to cover herself when he’d first awakened, and is now sitting next to him half naked and perfectly comfortable. That alone seems like proof of how far she’s come. 

“I like being naked with you,” says Peter, because it’s the most obvious thing right now. He can see the flush rising on her cheeks immediately. He continues quickly. “I mean, I like having sex with you, obviously we’ve established that. But I like just -- being naked with you, too. Like this. Just being comfortable.”

She nods slowly. “It is nice, I agree. I like the feel of your skin.”

This time it’s his turn to blush and he pulls her hand to his lips yet again, kissing it tenderly before turning his head so that his stubble brushes against her palm. 

Gamora shivers, then smiles. “What else?”

He bites his lip as he considers. It’s difficult to think of things off the top of his head, and not just because she’s half naked in front of him and making it difficult to think in general. Though that’s certainly not helping. But it’s more that all the little things she used to do that he loved became such a natural part of their relationship that it’s difficult to pick them apart. He didn’t keep a list in his head, he just loves them when she does them, appreciates them in the moment. Perhaps he’s taken them for granted after so many years. And now here he’s gone months without them but he’s possibly -- definitely -- going to be able to get them back. 

She’s rubbing her thumb lightly along the back of his hand, something he only just now realized she was doing. “I like this,” he says at last, lifting their hands a bit to indicate them. 

“Holding hands?” she asks.

“No,” he sighs, realizing this is yet another thing that’s hard to describe. “Well, yes! Yes. I love holding your hand. But I meant more...like I love casual touches, you know? Like hugs and kisses and holding hands and stuff but also… Sometimes when we’re walking or whatever, you’ll put a hand on my shoulder or my back, and rub it. Or when you touch my arm as you walk by me. Or just run your hand through my hair for a second. Stuff like that.” 

"Oh," says Gamora, sounding a little surprised, but mostly thoughtful. She looks down at his hand, which she’s still holding, and squeezes it a little tighter. “I did -- do those things? It’s -- difficult to imagine that I am capable.”

“Yeah,” says Peter, quashing the voice in the back of his head that’s trying to insist he shouldn’t have said anything, that he’s pushing her too hard or too fast just because she has doubts. She asked for this, he reminds himself. And she doubted herself before too, because those are the demons Thanos put in her head. She is asking him, as she has so many times before, to help her exorcise this particular set of them. “There are lots of things you couldn’t imagine yourself doing, right?”

She nods, looking more certain now. “Yes. All of this, really. Not just -- us. _All_ of it. Being a Guardian, being a sister to Nebula, being...whatever I am to Groot.”

“Exactly!” he says brightly, deciding not to push her on that last bit yet. She’s stretching herself enough as it is. “Exactly, and you’re awesome at all those things. You will be at this too, but you don’t have to push yourself if you feel like it’s too soon.”

“I don’t!” she says quickly. “Think it’s too soon. I am just--nervous about being able to do this. But clearly I can. And...I love touching you. So this works out.” She says the last part kind of shyly, something he’s always adored about her. Most people probably think she doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, but he gets to see a lot of things about her that nobody else does. 

“Good,” he says encouragingly. “And I’ll tell you other stuff as I think of it, okay?”

She nods. “Okay…” She pauses like she has more to say, so he patiently waits her out. He wonders how many people would think he doesn’t have a patient bone in his body. 

“You must already know all of the things I like,” she says at last. 

“I mean, I do know a lot,” he admits. “Not to brag or anything.” That gets a little smile out of her. “But even after four years, you still told me new things sometimes! So if there’s stuff I’m not doing that you want, please, totally tell me! Maybe it’s stuff I didn’t realize you were ready for, or maybe it’s a new thing, but either way, I wanna do it for you.”

“I am still re-learning what I like,” she says quietly. “But I will.” 

“Good,” says Peter, leaning down to kiss her temple very gently.

She makes a soft, appreciative noise and then takes the sort of breath that means she’s working up the courage to say something she really wants to say. He waits patiently. 

“Before,” she says finally, apparently having found the words she was searching for, “you liked it when I touched you casually. But did you -- Did you do the same for me? Touch me?”

“Oh,” says Peter, and then has to think, surprised by the question and by the fact that it takes him a second to remember the answer. It isn’t that it’s been so very long -- it might feel like it has, but in terms of the places where his conscious memories begin and end, it hasn’t -- but rather that it’s difficult to put such an instinctive thing into specifics. “Yeah, absolutely. Yes.”

To prove it, and also because he wants to, he reaches out and strokes a hand over her hair. It’s gorgeous and tousled from both sleep and their activities the night before. 

She leans into his hand. “I like it when you touch me.” 

“Well, I love touching you,” he says with a cheeky grin. “So it works out.” 

She gives him a look, but smiles. “I love when you touch my hair. It’s such an intimate thing on my homeworld, something I never thought I would get back.” 

“I love sharing it with you,” he says sincerely. He’d love touching her hair no matter what, but knowing how important it is to her makes it even more special. “Like, how I used to brush your hair all the time in the mornings. And braid it and stuff.” 

“I would like to continue that,” she says. 

“Now?” he asks, practically vibrating with excitement. 

She makes an amused noise, not quite a laugh, at his eagerness. “Yes. If you would like.”

“I would like!” he says, then scrambles off the bed. In his haste, his feet get tangled in the sheets and he nearly stumbles off of the bed. He catches himself on one foot, but the other remains tangled in the sheets, and he has to hop around on one foot to keep from falling as he kicks that foot free. 

“Peter!” she cries, and is on her feet before he’s even realized it, steadying him with both hands on his shoulders as he finally slows and stops hopping. 

A beat later he realizes that Gamora standing in front of him means that _naked_ Gamora is standing in front of him. He might just have had a similar view last night, but it’s not like he’s ever gotten even one bit used to it. She’s just as stunning every single time. No, wait. _more_ stunning, which doesn’t seem possible but somehow she makes it so that it is. He can’t help stopping and gaping at her, taking her in from head to toe and reveling in the fact that he’s allowed to do that now -- that he’s allowed to do that again. That she wants him to do it.

“Peter,” she repeats, her voice sounding far-off and definitely less distressed this time.

He snaps his head up, meeting her eyes again and finding her regarding him with that familiar quizzical affectionate look. And okay, there’s some amusement in it too. He endeavors to pick his jaw up off the floor enough that he can talk. “I -- yes? What?”

She shakes her head. “I said, does this ‘casual touching’ frequently happen because your balance is deficient?”

He has to laugh. He’s always loved her playfulness, the way she teases him. “What?” he says with mock indignation. “ _My_ balance? Deficient? How _dare_ you? I have the best balance in the entire galaxy. The casual touching happens because you can’t resist my rockin’ bod.” He flexes his arms, hands in fists near his head, and winks. 

Gamora snorts, but then she looks at him, and he realizes that he’s naked too. That makes his hopping around earlier a bit more embarrassing, but that’s driven from his mind because she may be smirking but the look she’s giving him is definitely heated. 

He flushes, suddenly not sure what to do with his arms, as if she’s never looked at him naked before. In her memory, though, she has only done it for one night now.

“Perhaps both things can be true,” she says when she drags her eyes back up to his. Her voice is definitely lower than it was before. 

“Oh, they definitely are,” Peter says, leaning down to kiss her because he can’t resist, not with that voice and that look and her being right there and naked and all. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders again and his go to her bare back, pulling her closer. He’s about to get carried away when suddenly that contact is gone. 

He opens his eyes to find Gamora already heading back to the bed. She sits in the middle of it and smiles at him. “Hair.” 

Peter gapes at her again, his brain refusing to compute any of what is going on. He’s pretty sure that he was supposed to be doing something other than touching her, and pretty sure that she’s said something he should be comprehending but, well. She’s naked and he is also naked and they were just making out. All his brain is capable of doing right now is clamoring for more. 

He shakes himself, reminding his body that Gamora is still taking the lead here. He clears his throat. “Uh -- say that again?”

“Hair,” she repeats patiently, though a bit louder and more firmly. She is apparently getting wise to the fact that he needs all the help he can get when his brain is trying to work under these conditions. Of course she is, because she’s brilliant. “Please, Peter.”

“Right!” he says quickly, regaining his focus and turning his attention toward gathering the supplies he needs. He levels a warning look down at his crotch. “Not now, boner.”

He hears Gamora laugh and grins, realizing that joke is new to her now. Not that it’s completely a joke. 

He comes back with his hands full of supplies and puts them on the nightstand next to the bed. Gamora is still sitting on the bed and smiling at him when he turns back to her.

“Your _boner_ is not quite listening,” she says with a pointed look. 

“Sometimes you gotta tell him more than once,” he says matter-of-factly. He glares down at his crotch again. “ _Down_. Stay.” 

“But not for too long,” Gamora tells it, then winks at him. He squeaks, and she appears very satisfied with herself. He loves her so damn much. 

“You’re trying to kill me, babe,” he accuses her with good humor as he crawls onto the bed to sit behind her. 

“Of course I’m not,” she says loftily. She tosses her hair behind her shoulders for him so it flows behind her back, beautiful in all its tangled and mussed glory. “Surely we’ve done this naked before.”

“Yeah, we have,” he admits as he begins brushing her hair, very gently. They’ve done pretty much every activity imaginable while naked. “But you’re so gorgeous, Mora. I can never get used to that.” 

She makes a thoughtful noise, and he’s gotten most of the tangles out when she speaks up. “I have been wondering,” she says slowly. “About whether I ever got used to some of the things that feel so new to me now. Like how you look, and how you feel. And how you make me feel.” 

“Oh,” says Peter, which seems to be his default syllable lately. He has to admit that he’s wondered the same thing, even worried about it at times, in fact. That went along with the ever-present fear of his that things with Gamora were just too good to be true, that there was no way someone so incredible could love him as intensely as he has always loved her. It got better over time, but it never completely went away, and having things -- Well, recent events have not helped that fear. 

He swallows and realizes that his hands have stilled in her hair. He forces himself to focus, to start brushing it again where he left off. “I -- What do you think? Do you think that you -- did? Or will?”

“I don’t know,” she says earnestly. She turns a bit to meet his eyes over her shoulder, though she can’t move too much without disturbing her hair, and she’s careful not to do that. “I used to think -- Well. Part of the way I survived my past, with Thanos, was by believing that I could become accustomed to anything at all. And with him, it was always true. Or -- I guess it was always true until it wasn’t, until I couldn’t let him get all of the Stones. But this -- I think this is different.”

“You do?” he says, totally not fishing. He puts the brush down and begins separating her hair into sections, because he’s definitely still focused on braiding her hair and not entirely on this conversation. 

“Yes,” she says softly. She turns back around to face away from him, either to give him more room to work or because this conversation is easier when she doesn’t have to make eye contact. She used to do that a lot, another thing that became less frequent the more comfortable she got with him. “I don’t think there is any way I could get used to this. To everything that I have with you. In the memories I do have of that time... Like when Thanos--well, Knowhere. I loved you so intensely then. I don’t think I had become accustomed to my feelings for you at all.”

“I hadn’t either,” he says. “Haven’t.” Deciding to be different this morning -- from that one time in her mind that he braided her hair -- he separates her hair even more, and begins braiding one half. This isn’t a style he’s done for her often, but he loves it. 

“What are you doing?” she asks curiously, turning her head again as if that’ll help her see the back of her head. 

“Braiding your hair,” he says honestly. He kisses her shoulder. “Trust me.” 

“I do trust you,” she says immediately, in that earnest, concerned tone that makes his heart swell. “I trust you with my life.”

“And your hair?” he asks lightly. He wants her to know that he wasn’t that serious, although he loves her for how sincerely she’s answered. Then again, maybe bringing up her hair wasn’t the best way to do that, given how important her hair is to her.

“Absolutely,” she says quickly, her tone now actually a bit somber, a bit concerned. “I did not mean to imply that I had any doubts in your ability or judgment there.”

“Hey,” says Peter. He ties off the end of her first braid and lets it fall against her back, then rests both of his hands on her shoulders soothingly. He leans in and presses a kiss to the nape of her neck, lingering for a long moment with his lips there before straightening up again. He keeps his hands where they are, though. “Hey, babe, I know. I was just teasing you. I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.”

“Oh,” says Gamora. He can’t see her face, but her tone tells him that she’s embarrassed, feeling foolish for her own reaction. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. He rubs her upper arms. “I’ll be more clear when I’m teasing you, okay?” He’s used to her being able to tell, but of course they often had these sorts of misunderstandings back at the beginning. He knows how to adjust for that. 

“Okay,” she whispers. “I do, though. Trust you. With every part of me.”

He smiles and kisses her neck one more time before he begins braiding the other half of her hair. “Good. So do I. Trust _you_ with the same, I mean. Not trust _me_.” 

“I did understand that part, Peter,” she says, but he _can_ tell that she’s teasing him. 

“Well, good,” he says. “And you can trust me when I tell you that you look _adorable_.” 

He ties off this braid as well, then gently moves both braids to rest over her shoulders. He loves her hair in each and every style of braid, but this style never fails to make him grin. She really does look adorable. 

“I look what now?” she asks, as she turns her head both ways to look at the braids that rest against her chest now. 

“Adorable,” he repeats, pointing her towards the mirror on the vanity across from the bed. 

She looks at herself, head tilted to the side in a way that makes her look even cuter somehow. There’s a thoughtful, considering look on her face; Peter wonders if she’s actually going to accept that adjective applied towards her. 

“I believe,” she says slowly after a while, “that I’m supposed to tell you I am a warrior and an assassin, and thus cannot possibly be adorable.” 

Peter’s heart starts beating faster again. He’d wanted her to accept the compliment -- he always wants her to accept it, wants her to be able to see herself in every positive light he sees her -- but he hadn’t really expected that she would. She is the same at her core, after all, and he understands all of the many complicated reasons why that word has always been so hard for her to accept. This is her typical answer, though, the one that she’s given him dozens -- no, hundreds, probably -- of times in their four years together. The one that’s become something of a joke to them, because it’s less painful than the truth about the ghosts of her past. But it’s more than just the words themselves, it’s also the tone she’s used for them. He’s pretty damn certain she’s talking about a memory. 

“That’s -- yeah,” he breathes. “But -- ‘supposed to’? You remember saying it before?”

She nods slowly. “I think -- I do. Though it’s more a feeling than a specific memory, like some of the others from last night and this morning. A sense. I said it often, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Peter says quickly. “Because _I_ said it all the time. That you were adorable, I mean. Which you are, by the way. Adorable all the time.”

“Why did I claim not to be?” she asks. She’s still looking quizzically at herself in the mirror with her head tilted, which is really so cute it ought to be outlawed. And he would know about outlaws. 

“You said being adorable or cute are things for children,” he says. He hooks his chin over her shoulder so he can join her in looking in the mirror. “Or for people who had childhoods. And _I_ say it’s for people who are the best and most perfect beings in the galaxy, and deserve every positive descriptor there is. Which is you.”

She opens her mouth and closes it again. He can actually feel her throat move against the side of his head as she swallows, and see the emotion on her face in the mirror. “Well,” she says, voice a little bit lower and rougher than it was before. “Perhaps I can allow, just this once...that these braids look kind of cute. A little bit.” 

He grins wide enough that it hurts his face. “Don’t worry,” he assures her, moving his head again to kiss her shoulder. “You’re not _just_ adorable. You’re still beautiful.” He kisses her neck. “And gorgeous.” He kisses her chin. “And amazing.” He kisses her cheek. She turns to face him, emotion swimming in her eyes, and she kisses him almost before he can even get out, “And perfect.” 

“Peter,” she whispers against his lips, and then turns fully around in a rush, pressing the length of her body against his as she captures him in a tight hug. 

He makes a noise that’s equal parts surprise and delight, falling back against the pillows easily and pulling her farther on top of him. It would have been totally understandable if she’d been thrown by the sudden change in position. But she’s Gamora, perpetually graceful, and so of course she just adapts, balancing on one elbow above him so that her braids hang down on either side of his face.

Peter grins, reaching up to touch one of them lightly. He’s admiring his work a little, to be sure, but he’s mostly admiring _her_. He arches an eyebrow, suddenly remembering that she’s said his name, though he’s also pretty sure that she’s forgotten too. “Yes?”

She does look thrown for the barest hint of a second, but then her look of confusion turns into a smirk. “I think your boner would like to know whether it is time yet.”

That makes him so happy he can’t even smile wide enough to convey it. “That’s up to you, babe. _He_ certainly thinks so.” He nods down towards his crotch, which he can’t see right now because she’s giving him a much better view instead. 

“Hmm.” Gamora hums with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “Let me think about it.” Then she leans down again to kiss him deeply, complete with nibbling at his lower lip and a hand in his hair. If his boner wasn’t paying attention before, it definitely is now. It was also definitely paying attention before. 

“Does that answer your question?” she asks when they pull away, and even she’s a little breathless. 

“I dunno,” he hedges. There’s not a ton of blood flow to his brain right now. “I think I need a more...thorough answer.” He’s really proud of himself for stringing that sentence together. 

“I am happy to provide one,” Gamora says and captures his lips again. She then proceeds to not only answer his question, but to drive all thoughts of questions out of his mind entirely.


	34. Chapter 34

Tragically, they eventually have to leave their quarters.

It ends up being several hours later, because they have a lot of reacquainting themselves to do with a lot of really fun things. Also several more orgasms, and fits of laughter, and...okay maybe some happy tears as well because even if he was being honest about not crying _every_ time, Peter does have to admit that it’s _a lot_ of the time. How can it not be when everything about Gamora is so overwhelmingly amazing? 

Still, much as he might be tempted to spend the rest of his life alone and naked with her, they eventually need to eat. And _furthermore_ it turns out that they’ve neglected to restock their private refrigerator with anything other than candy, ice cream, and bacon, and while Peter might be perfectly happy subsisting on only those things indefinitely, Gamora has always made it very clear that she requires fresh fruits and vegetables whenever possible. 

So that’s how they end up approaching the galley in the early afternoon, wearing way too many clothes for his liking. Still, Peter is in a pretty awesome mood. The most awesome mood he’s had in months, really. He might be dancing a bit as they make their way down the hall, and there aren’t even any tunes playing. 

Gamora is watching him with a smile that’s equal parts amused and fond. It’s a smile that spurs him on even more, so he shimmies his hips in a sort of disco down the hall. She looks like she’s in a pretty good mood herself; he did his best to make sure of it. And after four years, he knows how to put her in a good mood, if he does say so himself. 

“Do you think the others will be in the kitchen?” she asks, still watching him shimmy/dance. 

“Well, it is around lunch time,” he says. He stops dancing because he needs to save up his energy, but he is practically bouncing down the hall. “So they could be. Why?”

“They haven’t seen us all day,” she points out. “Do you think they’ll realize what we were doing?” She whispers that last part, as if one of them might hear. Which, to be fair, you never know when someone is lurking around the corner in one of these halls. Drax likes to set up pull-up bars here sometimes. 

Peter waves his hand dismissively. “Nah, it’ll be fine. They’ll never know.” He does a little skip around a corner. No exercising Drax, or other members of the team for that matter. 

“Are you sure?” Gamora asks skeptically. “You are not exactly acting subtle.” She doesn’t sound upset, more amused, but there is real wariness in her voice. She is quite private about intimate things like this, and he remembers her being more so in the earlier days. She kind of gave up on it after a while, since there’s not much privacy on this team, but it is still a sacred thing in her culture, and he respects that. 

“Sure I’m sure!” he says brightly. He pauses for half a beat so that she can catch up and come to stand even beside him, then brings his hand up to rest against her back for a moment. He doesn’t even fully realize that he’s doing it until she looks up at him, meets his eyes, but she certainly doesn’t seem to mind. He gives her a reassuring smile. “Hey, they are not gonna care. You’ve seen what they’re like, right? Everyone’s just gonna be focused on their own stuff.”

“True,” says Gamora. “I _have_ seen that they are all...distractible.”

He grins. “Exactly!” Peter keeps his hand on the small of her back and steers her into the galley.

As it turns out, _distractible_ is the perfect word for the scene that greets them. Kraglin is standing at the grill, although for once he appears to be cooking only for himself -- still two or three messy looking burger patties, though, which Peter knows he’s more than capable of eating all on his own. Drax is crunching something out of a bag and dropping an impressive amount of crumbs everywhere. Groot is digging through the refrigerator with Mantis looking on, flinging discarded items over his shoulder.

“Hey, watch it!” Rocket yells. He’s standing on the table behind them, and an old carton of something that Groot just flung away -- which does really look like it needs to be thrown out -- nearly hits him in the chest. Groot just grumbles in response and throws something else. 

Nebula, who has been watching this all disdainfully, grabs a trash receptacle and moves it behind Groot, right in front of Rocket, where the largest pile of discarded items sits. “You could at least aim for this, Groot.” 

Groot spares a glance back -- he probably only would bother in response to either Nebula or Gamora, Peter thinks -- and actually grins. 

“Oh, yes!” Mantis cheers. “A game!” 

The next thing Groot throws manages to make it perfectly into the trash. Mantis cheers again. 

“That’s something she learned from you,” Peter whispers to Gamora proudly. “She turned Groot’s mess-making into a clean up game. It’s pretty impressive.”

“I’ve done that?” Gamora whispers back, eyebrows raised. Peter barely gets a chance to nod before Nebula’s voice reaches them. 

“Nice of you two to join us,” she drawls. Most eyes in the room turn to them and he can feel Gamora tense beside him. 

He smiles, his totally cool and casual smile, and says, “Must’ve missed the memo that this is lunch time… only for some of us, apparently?” He gestures to Drax and Kraglin, the only ones who actually have food. 

Nebula holds up the cup she'd set down while moving the trash and tilts it to show them that she's drinking some kind of smoothie. It's green and looks like it's probably ridiculously healthy, probably something geared significantly more toward health and nutrition than taste. Over the years, Gamora has done her best to share her love of food with her sister, but Nebula still chooses practicality over pretty much anything else unless they're actually eating together. At least it isn't a ration bar. Still, Peter wrinkles his nose at it. 

"I already ate!" Mantis says brightly, and Groot makes a sound of agreement. "Kraglin made me a sandwich and it was delicious!"

"Glad you thought so!" Kraglin calls over. He piles his own large amount of food onto a plate and carries it over to the table. 

"Some of us eat lunch at lunchtime," Rocket says disdainfully. "Not in the middle of the flargin' afternoon."

"Hey," Peter shoots back easily. "Whatever time you eat lunch is lunch time."

"Maybe on Terra," Rocket grumbles. "Some of us are civilized."

"Oh, you're referring to me and Gamora?" Nebula scoffs. 

"You, maybe," says Rocket. " _You_ didn't waste half the day diddling your boy toy."

Peter and Gamora both freeze. Kraglin and Drax let out loud peals of laughter, Groot makes a face like he’s never heard anything more disgusting in his life, and Mantis says, “What is diddling?” If he weren’t so concerned about Gamora right now, Peter would probably laugh at that too. 

As it is, he glances at Gamora and can already see the flush rising on her cheeks. He turns a glare on Rocket. “Hey, man, we weren’t…” He hesitates. He doesn’t want to outright deny it, because he doesn’t want it to seem like he’s ashamed, and because the others clearly already know, despite how subtle he’s behaving. This is hardly the first time he and Gamora have strolled in late somewhere for the same reason. Peter probably should have known this was going to happen but hey, he doesn’t learn. 

“Whatever it is,” Mantis says, seemingly half to herself, “they are embarrassed. And happy! And -- ooh!” Her eyes widen comically as she seems to intuit what ‘diddling’ means. 

Nebula quickly comes to her sister’s defense after that. “Not another word,” she says harshly to Rocket, glaring at him even worse than Peter had. 

Gamora turns to look at her sister, surprise clear on her face, at least momentarily surpassing the embarrassment. Peter knows instinctively that it’s because she is still unaccustomed to Nebula defending her, despite their experiences over the past several months. There was a time, certainly, when Nebula would have used this sort of a situation against her, to strike her where it hurts the most. But now, though she is still adept at knowing Gamora’s vulnerabilities, still loves to tease her sister, she knows how to differentiate between things that are all right to do that with and things that would be legitimately hurtful. Peter’s not sure he’s ever been prouder of her in his entire life.

Nebula holds her gaze for a long, intense moment, then rolls her eyes. “Oh, stop looking at me like that. To think, you didn’t believe me when I told you that you had gone soft in the future. And would again.”

“Nebula,” Gamora breathes, and then seems at a loss for what else to say. 

“For what it’s worth,” says Nebula, “I think it was _more than_ time. But I also do not want to think about your escapades with that hairy oaf, so everyone else had best shut up about it.”

Peter grins so wide his face hurts, well accustomed to that insult. It can do nothing to diminish how pleased he is by Nebula’s reaction, and by Gamora’s reaction _to_ her reaction. 

Groot is still making a face like he’s smelled something foul. “I am Groot.” He’s agreeing with Nebula that he would like them to stop talking about _that_. He even puts his hands over the sides of his head to block out any potential icky talk that might still come. 

“Yeesh,” Rocket says, shaking his head. “You guys are so lame. Can’t even make fun of the morons anymore.”

“I believe Nebula did still,” Drax pipes up, mouth full of chips. “She called Quill a hairy off!” 

“You gotta stop being so obsessed with my hair,” Peter says, fluffing it dramatically. Nebula scowls at him. Gamora has visibly relaxed at this turn in the conversation, and Peter throws an arm around her shoulders. To his pleasure, she relaxes even more. 

“If you already ate,” she says to Mantis and Groot, “why are you rummaging through the fridge?” 

“I am Groot,” he says, like it’s obvious. 

“Yes!” Mantis agrees. “We want more!” 

“I’ll whip us up something!” Peter says, heading eagerly to the fridge. That is the actual reason he and Gamora emerged from their room, after all. 

“What are you punishing ‘em for?” Rocket asks, then cackles at his own joke. Drax laughs too, spraying food crumbs everywhere. 

“Oh, you want some too?” Peter asks, then winks obnoxiously at Rocket. True, he’s not the best cook on the ship -- that honor most definitely goes to Kraglin -- but he’s perfectly able to make decent food with a little bit of effort. Especially now that he’s had years of motivation through wanting to be able to share tasty things with Gamora. If any of their cooking can be considered a punishment, it would have to be Drax’s. He’s been responsible for more than his share of unpleasant bodily fluids, which he of course found hilarious. Also a broken tooth one time.

“I will have some too!” says Drax, his mouth still full. Of course the sarcasm in Peter’s last remark goes right over his head.

“What are you going to make?” asks Gamora, sounding only very slightly wary. He can’t fault her for that, he tells himself -- She doesn’t have recent memories of his totally awesome skills, and she’s seen more than enough of the group’s overall taste in food to have concerns. Then again, he’s also shown her bacon and burgers and lots of other things that she loves.

“I dunno yet,” he admits. “Depends on what’s in the fridge.”

“Probably not a lot,” Kraglin says. He at least waits until he’s mostly finished chewing before he speaks. “After how much Groot’s been flingin’ around.”

“I am Groot!” he says indignantly, protesting that he didn’t throw out anything good. It did look like most of the stuff he was tossing was old and probably did need to go, but Peter’s pretty sure he saw some Thirphic -- Groot’s least favorite vegetable -- in the trash pile too. Since Peter’s not a fan of it either, he elects not to say anything. He also hopes some of Drax’s creations made it in the waste as well. 

“I’m sure there’ll be something,” Peter says, with eternal confidence even though that’s not always the case. This team’s ability to go through food is one of the main reasons he and Gamora have their own separate fridge. He is pleased, though, when he nudges Groot aside to look in the fridge and sees there’s still quite a lot in here. He’s happiest about the large amount of fruit. 

“I’ll make you a fruit salad!” he tells Gamora. It’s one of her favorite things, and even if she may not remember that, her face still lights up when he says it. 

Groot makes a face. “I am Groot.” _I don’t want healthy stuff_. 

“Well,” says Peter, “then you’re free to eat something else, buddy. You were the one who decided you wanted to have some of what we’re having.” Groot has never had any trouble helping himself to any and all food on the ship, which is yet another reason he and Gamora have their own fridge with a lock on it that is keyed to only their own biometrics. 

“I am Groot,” he whines predictably, scuffing one of his feet against the ground and pouting in a decidedly teenaged way. 

“No,” Peter tells him firmly. “I am not gonna give you anything from the candy stash. We’re not going back to our quarters right now and you already had one meal. If you want something else, then you can get something else, or you can have some of the fruit salad I’m gonna make for Gamora. Those are your choices right now.”

“When was the last time you had any fruit?” asks Gamora, surprising Peter with her choice to speak up. Not that it would have been unusual before, but...well, she’s still finding that part of herself again.

Groot gives her a skeptical look, and for one terrible moment, Peter thinks he might reject her, might call her an imposter again or something even worse. But then he rolls his eyes in a much more benign way. “I am Groot.” _I hate fruit._

“It’s good for you,” Gamora says lightly. 

“He’s already basically vegetation,” Nebula says, gesturing to him. The vines on his head _are_ growing a lot of leaves lately. Groot turns and glares at her, but there’s no heat in it; he’s never actually mad at Nebula for anything. 

“You can do what you want,” Peter informs him loftily, taking all the fruit to the counter so he can start sorting through it and mixing it up. He knows exactly which fruits Gamora likes best, and the amounts she likes when she eats them together, so he does it quickly and easily. It’s familiar and something he can do to make her happy, so he finds himself humming as he works. 

Gamora comes to stand next to him and watch over his arm. 

“You love my fruit salad,” he informs her, cutting up an ippufruit. 

“I trust you,” she says easily. “I just wanted to watch.” She rests a hand lightly on his back and he practically vibrates with how easy the gesture seemed to come to her. 

“I am Groot!” he suddenly cries dramatically. Peter glances back at the fridge to see that he’s holding up a partially full bag of frozen Krylorian burritos. 

“Oh!” Peter says brightly, his own interest piqued by those. They’re one of his favorite foods, partly because they’re so easy to prepare and partly because they’re just really damn delicious. In fact, aside from candy, they were one of his main staple foods as a teenager with the Ravagers. They taste a lot like the burritos he remembers from Earth. 

He turns to Gamora. “Hey, do you re--” In his excitement he’s almost managed to forget that the others aren’t aware of her regained memories yet, and that she probably doesn’t want them to find out this way. The tiny hitch in her breathing is enough to remind him, though, along with a considerable rush of adrenaline. He’s already messed up today in telling her that the others wouldn’t know why they were late, the last thing he wants to do is blow this for her too. 

Fortunately, he’s a master of thinking on his feet. He turns his concerned expression into an easy grin. “Hey, do you _re_ quire some protein with your lunch too? ‘Cause those burritos are a really awesome way to get some!”

Gamora shakes her head, but it looks more affectionate than upset, so he congratulates himself on his quick save. “Yes, I will try one if that’s your recommendation.”

“I want one too!” Drax calls. “No, wait! Three!” He seems to have run out of chips, because he crumples the bag up in his fist and throws at the waste basket. It lands in the small pile of discarded food items that surround it, from where Groot hadn’t made his throws. 

“I would like one too!” Mantis says, clapping enthusiastically. Kraglin, mouth still full, raises his hand to put in his request as well. 

“If you’re making ‘em anyway…” Rocket says, hopping down from the table, looking distinctly more interested than he’s trying to show. Nebula just scowls at them, but she’s still _here_ , and Peter’s pretty sure he’s seen her eat these every once in a while, when she’s feeling less self-punishing than usual. 

“Go ahead,” Peter says to Groot, who’s been cheering. “Make them all. There’s plenty, someone will eat them.” Groot’s face falls and he looks at the package as if it’s betrayed him. 

“I am Groot!” he protests with a petulant little stomp of his foot. _But I found them!_

“Exactly,” Gamora says, voice soft but inviting no argument. “It was your idea, so you can make them.” 

“All you gotta do is stick ‘em in the heater for thirty seconds,” Peter says, rolling his eyes at Groot’s continued pouting. 

Groot grumbles and stomps over to the quick-heater, dumping the contents of the box onto a plate and shoving it inside. 

“Hey,” says Peter, putting down the knife he’s been using with a sigh and going over to join Groot by the quick-heater. He’s been so damn focused on Gamora for the past several months that it’s hardly occurred to him to parent Groot, he realizes suddenly. He just hasn’t had much time or energy. And while he knows that the others have surely stepped up to fill that role, that Groot will never truly be lacking in that department, he can’t help the wave of regret and guilt he feels. Time to fix that right now, and also rescue lunch from becoming a soggy mess.

“Hey, buddy,” he repeats. “That’s not gonna work, we definitely need to split them up onto, like, at least three separate plates. See, because if they’re piled on top of one another, they’re not gonna heat evenly.”

Groot rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue. “I am Groot.”

Peter sighs again, trying to remain patient. “Well, if you already know that, then why not do it the right way? I know that you want to take good care of your family, right bud?”

Groot lets out one of his patented dramatic sighs, complete with another eye-roll and heaving shoulders. But he glances towards Gamora, and the rest of them, before he grows his vines to reach for two more plates. 

“Good job,” Peter says encouragingly and pats him on the shoulder. Groot grumbles indistinctly as he sets about separating the burritos; from his attitude, you’d think it’s the hardest thing he’d ever been asked to do. But Peter considers any time he can get Groot to listen to him a victory, no matter how much muttering comes with it. 

He turns to head back to the fruit salad, only to find that Gamora is leaning against the counter in front of it, watching him; she’s got half an ippufruit in her hand, and is currently chewing on the rest of it. She smiles widely around her mouthful when he looks at her. 

“Hey!” Peter says, laughing. “You’re supposed to wait til it’s done!” Not that he actually cares at all. She can eat whatever she wants, however she wants. 

He moves his arm in between her and the bowls, playfully fighting her off. Gamora shrugs coyly and reaches over his arm to snag another piece. Her smirk falls a bit when she looks at it. It’s a madine, a purple berry that she loves but hasn’t had since rejoining them, so has no memory of, unlike with the ippufruit. 

“You wanna try it before I put it in?” Peter asks gently, resting a hand on her arm. He knows she’s gonna like it, but he also understands that it upsets her to not have that knowledge for herself, that experience. So he isn’t going to tell her that she’ll like it, will let her decide when she’s ready to try it. 

She hesitates, then nods, popping it into her mouth. She eats it whole and then makes a noise of approval, licking her lips in a way that is totally not distracting.

“Good?” asks Peter, wanting to let her form her own opinion. 

“Definitely good,” she agrees. “Sweet.”

“It reminds me of this fruit on Earth called cherries,” he offers. He’s told her this before, of course, but she’s still shown no signs of recognition so he wants her to have the context. And besides, maybe someday they’ll go back to Earth when the universe isn’t about to end. Maybe he’ll finally get to show her all of the things he loves so much about it. Maybe they’ll get to make those new memories together.

“And you like those?” asks Gamora, studying him. 

“Yeah!” he says enthusiastically. “I love them!” He only remembers having them a couple times, and always on top of ice cream sundaes, but they sure were delicious. And covered in chocolate sauce or whipped cream. 

That seems to please her, because she picks up another one. He’s about to playfully scold her for ruining her appetite for lunch, but then instead of eating it herself, she holds it out to him. With a huge grin, he takes it in his mouth, capturing the tips of her fingers along with it. The heated look she gives him is more than worth it, even if it does make being in front of the others a little less comfortable. 

“I am Groot,” he says suddenly from behind them. _Stop being gross_. Gamora takes her fingers quickly out of Peter’s mouth and turns to accept the plate Groot is holding out, containing two burritos. 

“Thank you, Groot,” she says, only blushing a little. Groot grows his vines then to pass out the other plates to the rest of the team, including Nebula, he notices, who takes the plate reluctantly. He even gives Drax his requested three. 

He really is a good kid, Peter thinks proudly. 

“Thanks, bud,” he makes sure to tell Groot. Then he turns back to Gamora and offers her a knowing, crooked smile. “Now remember, those are for both of us. I’d better not catch you eating mine too.” 

She would never actually do that, he knows. Not when he actually wants his food. But her love of food, to the point of doing things like snagging fruit or candy behind his back, has become a running joke between them. It’s one of his favorite things, actually, because it’s a sign of how much she’s grown in allowing herself to have the things she wants, how far she’s come from sticking to ration bars or nutritional smoothies like Nebula. But then he remembers that she _doesn’t_ remember that, might actually think he’s berating her. 

“I mean--” he starts, but Gamora stops him with a hand on his arm.

She leans in, close to his ear, her voice low when she speaks. “Just consider yourself fortunate that you do not have any chocolate.”

Peter blinks, emotions swerving abruptly from panic to elation. The only explanation for that remark is that she must have remembered something else.

He glances back at the others and sees that they’re all occupied with their burritos. Groot’s even made his way over to the table to eat with them. He and Gamora ought to join them, but he’s going to take advantage of this relative privacy first. 

“What happens when I have chocolate?” he whispers eagerly. 

She shrugs with a coy smirk. “Not sure. But I might eat a bunch of it when your back is turned, then pretend I hadn’t. Or -- you might _think_ that. I would surely do no such thing. Despite your accusations.”

He grins. He doesn’t know what particular memory she got back -- or if she even did get a specific one, as she’s said she’s had many that are more feelings than specifics -- since she’s “stolen” chocolate more times than he can count. She always does it playfully and leaves him plenty, but it’s adorable. 

“That doesn’t sound like something you would do,” he says in an affected voice. “You certainly would never do it with fruit either.”

“Never,” she agrees, then snags another madine. 

“I better finish this before it mysteriously disappears,” he says, throwing the last of the fruit into the bowl. He takes the bowl and the burrito plate and carries them over to the table for her, though she hovers a bit; he can tell she’s waiting for one of the things he’s carrying to fall. Psh. She has no faith. He only ever drops stuff sometimes. 

He gets both dishes to the table without incident. He sets them down, then pulls out a chair for Gamora and gestures grandly. “M’lady, your throne?”

Gamora shoots a look at him like he might have grown a second head, but honestly, even that is pretty familiar, could be any day out of any year of their relationship. He shrugs and waggles his eyebrows at her, which makes her sigh affectionately. She’s also apparently way more invested in the fruit than in judging him, so she takes the seat and starts eating the salad eagerly.

Peter sits beside her and pulls over the plate with the burritos. He only manages one bite, though, because in taking it he looks up and finds Rocket and Drax both staring at him. Rocket doesn’t say anything -- probably knowing how seriously he needs to take Nebula’s threats -- but also doesn’t restrain himself from rolling his eyes and motioning like he’s gagging himself. Peter flips him the bird, which makes Drax snicker. It’s his version of whispering, but it’s still plenty loud. Fortunately, Gamora is too absorbed in the fruit to notice or care.

Mantis is grinning at them instead of eating her own burrito. Kraglin and Groot both have their heads ducked down as they eat; for Kraglin, that’s just how he eats, but Peter’s pretty sure Groot is deliberately ignoring the icky mushy stuff he and Gamora have going on right now. Peter is too happy to be fazed by any of this, so he takes another large bite of his burrito and settles in to watch Gamora eat her fruit. 

Gamora’s only tried two new kinds of fruit -- loving them both, of course -- when suddenly a chime sounds, and a light turns on at a panel next to the table that indicates a call. Peter glances at the small holo embedded in the table and sees the ID is the Nova Corps. 

“Somebody is calling!” Mantis announces loudly. They can all obviously tell that, and Rocket is probably about to say something to that effect, but Peter wants to encourage Mantis communicating about messages. 

“Thank you,” he says firmly, cutting off Rocket’s probably rude response. 

“It’s probably Dey with a message about the Sons,” Nebula says, and she taps on the holo to answer it before Peter gets a chance to. Which he was totally just going to. 

When the display pops up, projected from the center of the table so they can all see, Peter’s suddenly very glad he can set the blame for accepting this call on someone else’s shoulders, because it’s not Dey. 

“Greetings,” Corman says stiffly. Only his head, neck, and the tops of his shoulders are showing, but Peter can tell he’s standing with his arms behind his back like pretty much always. 

“Corman!” Mantis squeals, far too enthusiastically for the sight of him. She leans up close to the holo transmitter and waves, an action Peter knows from experience will make an exaggerated closeup of just her face fill the entire view screen on Corman’s side of things. “Hi!”

Corman actually flinches a bit at that, which is looking dangerously close to surprise on someone as formal and straight-laced as he is. He looks like he wants to take a step back from the projection but he doesn’t, stubbornly squaring his shoulders back up. “Greetings,” he repeats.

Drax shoves Mantis back with a forearm, then gives her a look like she’s lost her mind. “Why are you acting so happy to see him? We don’t like him. He almost got Quill killed on our last mission, and also he is very boring.”

“Hey, hey,” Peter interjects. “I did not almost die! Anytime recently!”

“Thanos killed all of us a few months ago,” says Drax, as if that should be very obvious. The words aren’t _quite_ the same gut punch they were in the very recent past, but they’re still not fun to hear. 

“Speak for yourself, moron!” says Rocket. 

“Weren’t _you_ the one responsible for Quill’s burns?” Corman retorts from the screen. 

Rocket’s tail stands up, ruffled. “I wasn’t the one who made us hang back and nearly got us caught! _I_ was the one who saved our asses and got us outta there!” 

If Corman had a tail, it would almost certainly be standing up as well. “I saved innocent--” 

“Can we get to the point?” Gamora interjects, in a tone that’s not really a question. She’s glaring at Corman almost as much as Rocket, Peter notices, likely because of the mention of his burns. Though they’ve healed, Gamora has never liked it when he’s been injured. He puts a hand supportively on her back and she untenses a little, but keeps up her stern look. 

Corman’s lips purse, and Peter can practically see the war raging in his head between being professional and the desire to continue defending himself. Professionalism wins, though, and he visibly straightens up, moving his shoulders as if resettling himself. “Yes. Well. Dey has instructed me to relay the news.” He sure doesn’t look pleased about it, either. “We have had success with the tracker I implanted into the Sons’ ship.” 

“So you found them!” Mantis says excitedly. She’s grinning still, undeterred by Drax telling her not to be nice to him. 

“The tracker has obtained a signal,” Corman says formally. 

Groot rolls his eyes and says with a great deal of sass, “I am Groot. _Just say you found them, moron._. 

The rest of them chuckle -- even Nebula smirks -- though it’s mostly from the look on Corman’s face; he can’t understand Groot, so every time he says something and no one translates for him, he seems to assume it’s something bad about him. Which it often is. 

“Right?” says Rocket, turning to Groot. He’s smirking, clearly being vague so that Corman won’t be able to get any sense of the context beyond the fact that they’re mocking him. 

Peter might feel a little bit bad for the guy -- or maybe just bad about his team’s unprofessional behavior -- except that Corman’s insistence on hanging back to save the other prisoners had put Gamora at least indirectly in danger. That is unforgivable in his book. So, let them mock away.

“I am Groot!” says Groot, parroting Corman with an affected tone that makes him sound even more stiff and arrogant. He even puts his shoulders back, squares them, and then clasps his hands behind his back. 

“Your lack of linguistic ability is not my problem,” says Corman, clearly bothered, red splotches beginning to appear on the parts of his neck that are visible above his uniform. 

“Hey,” says Rocket. “Don’t make fun o’ Groot. It ain’t his fault you’re too stupid to understand him. _We_ all do, so I’d say that difficulty is _your_ problem.”

“I am Groot!” Groot pouts, then gives Corman the finger.

Rocket laughs uproariously. “I take it _that_ don’t need no flargin’ translation for you!”

Corman’s definitely about to say something rude in response, but this time it’s Nebula who interrupts the bickering. “That’s enough!” she says, loudly and firmly enough to subdue Corman and Groot. Rocket is still glaring, but he doesn’t say anything else, which is as subdued as he can get when he’s in the taunting mood. Which is most of the time. 

“The purpose of this call,” Nebula continues, addressing Corman, “is to brief us, is it not?” 

“Yes,” Corman says, reluctant to admit that any of them are right about anything at any time. 

“Then let’s get on with it,” Nebula snaps. “Rather than squabbling like children.” 

Groot pouts, slinking down in his chair. “I am Groot.” _I am a child_. It’s something he absolutely hates being called, except when it works to his advantage. 

“You may be a child,” Gamora says. “But the rest of us are adults and we should act like it.”

“I will if they will,” Corman says haughtily. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s real mature,” Peter mutters. 

“Where is the Sons’ ship?” Nebula asks, glaring at Corman in a manner that’s practically daring him not to answer.

Corman takes a couple seconds to respond, and Peter wonders if the distance of communicating via holo will give him enough gall to continue the bickering instead. But he finally responds, “Near Hala.” 

“Hala?” Peter breathes, that word feeling like a bucket of cold water over the head. All his amusement at the others goading Corman leaves in a rush, like a tub with the drain suddenly pulled. “Well, shit.”

“Yes,” says Corman, sounding a bit triumphant at Peter’s response, almost smirking too. Not exactly the consummate professional he’d like everyone to believe he is, or at least not when it comes to playing nicely with others. “Dey’s response was similar, though somewhat less...well, colorful. Then again, I don’t know that I have ever met anyone more colorful than _you_ , Star-Man.”

Peter sighs and rolls his eyes despite literally everything about this situation. “Come on, Corman. I _know_ you know it’s Star-Lord.”

“Hala is a terrible planet,” Drax interrupts, his words underscored with a fiery rage Peter hasn’t heard from him in a while. “Filled with terrible people. Like Ronan.”

“Yes,” says Nebula thoughtfully, her own tone considerably calmer. “But I can see a certain strategic advantage to going there. The Kree have been able to keep much of their activity secret, but we know that they have substantial power in terms of both knowledge and weapons. If the Sons are looking for another kidnapping target, or perhaps even a ready-made weapon to steal, going to Hala is a good move.”

“I thought we were not supposed to praise people we don’t like?” Mantis says. It’s not sarcasm, like that would be coming from pretty much anyone else; it’s a genuine query. 

“We’re not supposed to be nice _to_ them,” Peter explains. “There’s a difference.”

“And it’s not praise,” Gamora points out. “It’s evaluation of their tactics.”

“Their tactics are apparently to go to a place full of war-mongers who hate every one of us!” Rocket says. His tail is ruffled again. “The Kree hate Xandarians, and us! That didn’t change after the snap.” 

“The treaty between the Kree and Xandar still stands,” Nebula says calmly. 

“And so does the sect of crazy purists,” Rocket retorts. 

Suddenly, the amount of danger they’re getting into here hits Peter like a brick, and he can’t help but glance at Gamora. All he wants in the entire universe right now is to keep her safe. They barely survived Ronan. 

“Why don’t we just wait til they move on?” he suggests, trying to sound cool and calm and rational. “Attack them somewhere that’s not full of very violent people who hate us all?” 

“We can attack the Sons and the Kree at once!” Drax says dramatically. Peter groans internally; of course this activated Drax’s vengeance complex. 

“We are absolutely not attacking the Kree,” Corman says firmly. “We do not want a war.” 

“I want a war!” says Drax, planting a fist on the table with enough force that a couple of the plates rattle. “I killed Ronan and I killed Thanos --”

“You did not do either of those things directly or by yourself,” Nebula points out coolly, throwing an irritated glance at Drax for his fiery temper and dramatic flair. Which is ironic, really, considering how dramatic Nebula herself can be, like, all the time. “And you will not start a war with the Kree on your own either, because we will not allow you to do that.”

“The Nova Corps will not allow you to do that,” Corman interrupts before Drax can respond. “The Nova Corps will absolutely _not_ allow you to do that. I will personally make sure that -- “

“Hey, maybe the Nova Corps can do this one on their own, then!” Peter says brightly. That’s sounding more and more like a good idea, not because he thinks the Corps can do a better job than the Guardians can, but because just about anything sounds better than dragging Gamora into that kind of danger. 

“Oh, great idea,” Nebula says sardonically, evidently taking his remark as not serious. Which is silly, because Peter is always totally and completely serious.

“No, I’m serious!” he points out helpfully.

Rocket snorts derisively. “As if they could handle this on their own.”

“We absolutely could!” Corman says defensively. 

“Oh yeah?” Peter challenges. “Then why don’t you?”

To his surprise, it’s Gamora who answers. “Because a battle featuring the Nova Corps in Kree territory would look much more like a declaration of war than the Guardians going in.”

Corman doesn’t say anything, but he looks angry -- angry because she’s right, and he’s mad about it. Peter’s not exactly happy about how right she is either. 

“All the more reason for us to wait until they get outta there!” he says, a little desperately. 

“Peter,” Gamora says quietly. She puts her hand over his, where it’s gripping the edge of the table. He hadn’t realized he’d been doing that. “Given all their failed attempts at having a custom one made, they are almost certainly there to steal a weapon. We should stop them before they get one. It will only be harder to defeat them if they succeed.”

“Maybe we can get our hands on some Kree weapons while we’re there,” Rocket mutters, rubbing his hands together. 

“No,” Nebula says firmly. 

“Everyone is very tense,” Mantis says. Her antennae are standing straight up, actually looking tense themselves. 

“No shit!” Peter snaps, then instantly regrets it when her face crumples like he might have just struck her. It’s bad enough that the tension in the room’s been getting to her. Mantis does not deserve to have him being a dick to her on top of it. He takes a deep breath and blows it out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a jerk, I just -- I don’t like this.”

“You are _not_ a jerk,” Mantis tells him, her dark eyes huge and swimming with that vastness that’s equal parts endearing and downright spooky. Her antennae had gone limp for a moment at his tone, but now they spring to attention again, though they aren’t glowing. “You are just very, very scared.”

Ordinarily Peter wouldn’t have much of a problem with Mantis making a statement like that. It’s not like he’s ever been particularly closed off with any of his emotions, but also he’s pretty much learned to expect her to read him like a book from that very first day when she’d announced his love for Gamora to the whole freaking galaxy. But right now they aren’t alone, and Corman’s started snickering on the holo screen.

“I am not scared!” Peter protests. He studiously avoids looking at Gamora, or Rocket. “I’m...apprehensive. About getting into another crazy ass battle!”

“Did you even hear me when I said no war?” Corman drawls. “That means no bat--”

Peter blinks in confusion when, despite the fact that Corman’s mouth continues moving, there’s no sound coming out. Then he finally does look at Gamora and finds that she’s pushed the mute button for the holo, so they can’t hear him and he can’t hear them. It would be funny if he weren’t so apprehensive, or the look on her face weren’t so serious. 

“Finally,” Nebula says with a sigh. “Now we can have an actual discussion.”

“What is there to discuss?” Drax says, still apparently in the mood to fight. 

“Whether or not we’re gonna go do some more dumb shit and get ourselves killed?” Rocket says derisively. Peter’s never appreciated him more. 

“No one is doing any _dumb shit_ ,” Gamora says. “But we can’t let the Sons get hold of Kree weapons.” She rubs her hand up and down Peter’s forearm. The look she gives him is soft and understanding. God, he loves her so much. And he’s only just really gotten her back. He knows she’s been back for a while now, but they’ve only just now both fully realized it, acted on it. And now here they are, talking about going into another dangerous situation. 

“Drax is talking about starting a one-man war against the Kree,” Rocket points out. It’s unclear whether that’s because he’s concerned about it or just because he’s feeling the need to be right. At least he’s not being any more of an asshole to Gamora than...well, before everything. So that’s progress...or something. “That most definitely qualifies as ‘dumb shit,’ Gamora. Like pretty much everything he does.”

“Hey!” Drax protests. “Only some of what I do is dumb shit!”

Nebula gives him a look of disgust. “Case in point. But my sister is correct, we cannot allow the Sons to to have access to the Kree’s considerable resources. They don’t have anything like the Infinity Stones, but I don’t want to give the galaxy a chance to find out what they _do_ have. We will go, intercept the Sons, and give the Kree no reason to have hostile intentions toward us.”

“I have hostile intentions toward them!” Drax insists, brandishing one of his knives. Then he uses it to stab his mostly forgotten burrito and begins eating again with gusto.

“Can we leave him behind?” Peter suggests. All at once he’s reminded of Drax’s rashness on Knowhere, of the fact that _that_ was the start of everything going wrong. Then again, maybe he’s kidding himself. Probably everything had already gone wrong long before they’d ever arrived.

“Hey!” Drax protests with his mouth full. 

“I’ve been saying that for years!” Rocket says enthusiastically. Groot cackles and agrees. Drax takes his next bite rather grumpily. 

Corman seems to have noticed at some point that they’d muted him, because now he’s waving frantically to get their attention, looking even grumpier than Drax. 

“Maybe we can ditch him too,” Nebula says dryly, but Gamora unmutes him. 

“Are you done being a child yet?” she asks in her Parent voice. Peter wonders if she realizes that’s what that tone is. 

“You are hilarious,” Corman says, ruffled but trying to appear dignified. “Meanwhile, _I_ am taking our mission seriously. Unless you have decided not to accept it? I will be happy to tell Dey if you have.”

Peter sighs and glances at Rocket, who he’s aware was never actually considering turning it down. He just likes to argue. Then he turns to Gamora, who wants to do the right thing, as usual, and stop the bad guys. He was never really going to be able to say no either, not when Gamora wants to go. But he appreciates that she let him entertain the idea. He fantasizes, just for a second, about convincing her to just run away with him, to never put themselves in danger again, to just live their lives in as much peace as they can find. But that’s not who either of them are. 

“And let you fuck it up on your own?” Peter says to Corman. “Not a chance.” 

“I have never ‘fucked up’ a mission in my life,” Corman says haughtily. 

“Oh, really?” Peter goads, unable to resist. Corman was just mocking _him_ after all. It’s only fair that if he chooses to constantly dish it out, he gets to take some too. “So that whole thing where we had to rescue your ass on Maliv was just a group hallucination?”

“If only,” Corman sniffs. “On the contrary, that was my salvaging a mission that had the potential to be a total loss. My actions got you the intel we have now, did they not? I would hardly call that ‘fucking up.’”

“You got imprisoned on the trash planet, man,” Peter reminds him. “You gotta learn to admit to your mistakes sometimes. I admit to mine all the time! For example, this morning I totally put hair gel on my tooth brush instead of toothpaste. It was super gross.” He grimaces, feeling pretty generous for admitting to that in front of Corman. Then again, one of them needs to be the bigger person.

“Distracted, were you?” Rocket says with a smirk. 

“That was a terrible idea, Quill,” Drax says helpfully. 

Peter makes a frustrated noise, glares at Rocket, then turns the glare back to Corman. Right now, he wants to get Corman away as fast as possible. Though, they’re gonna have to see him in person pretty soon. 

“Where’s the rendezvous?” Peter asks him, more business-like than before. 

“Icarro,” he says, going back to his crisp, professional, pompous tone. Probably doesn’t want to be out-professionaled by Peter. “A planet in the neutral zone just outside the Kree Empire. You’re to meet me here as soon as possible. Dey will call at some point with more details.” 

“Fantastic,” Peter says. “Try not to get imprisoned before we get there.” Then he hangs up, satisfied with getting the last word. 

“I am Groot,” he mutters. _What an asshole_. No one even scolds him for his language. 

“Are you okay?” Gamora whispers to Peter. 

He looks at her, takes in the compassion on her face. He doesn’t want to lie, but he also doesn’t want to spill his fears in front of the others. So he nods. She doesn’t look like she believes him anyway. 

“Everyone get ready,” he says, using his Captain Voice. “Meet on the Benatar in half an hour.”

“Try not to be late this time,” Nebula says, directed at him and Gamora. Gamora gives her sister a look, then stands and tugs him with her. They leave their burritos behind as they hurry out of the room. At least she’d finished most of the fruit. 

They need to head back to their quarters, he knows, to grab weapons and other supplies. Right now, though, those things feel very far away, feel like things that he might not even be capable of doing. Right now, all he can think about is Knowhere, and Titan, and that stretch of time he lived with the terrible knowledge that Gamora was -- well, he can’t bring himself to actually think the words. And even now, with her here beside him, it’s not like that didn’t still happen, not like he didn’t still fail her. All he can think about is that he could fail her again now. 

“Peter,” she says firmly, and he realizes suddenly that she’s been trying to get his attention. He tries to gather the breath to reply but she doesn’t give him the chance, grabbing him by the arm and hauling him into one of the nooks by a big port window. 

“Sorry,” he stammers, off balance. “Sorry, I’m -- what are we doing? We gotta go --”

“Not until you talk to me,” says Gamora. “Because you are _not_ okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, hating the look of concern on her face. 

“Don’t apologize,” she says firmly. She cups his face in her hands, centering him. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

He looks at her for a moment; the love of his life, the best thing that’s ever happened to him. It takes considerable effort not to cry. Jesus, it’s a wonder he hasn’t run out of tears yet.

“Peter,” she coaxes, and he can’t deny her. 

“I don’t want to lose you again,” he whispers. It’s not like this is a secret, anyway. She’s well aware of this fear. “I _just_ got you back.” 

She rubs his cheek gently with one of her thumbs, a mesmerizing motion that serves to comfort him a little bit. “I don’t want to lose you either. I have no intentions of letting that happen.”

“The Kree are vicious,” he says, though he’ll admit he’s not entirely up on what they’ve been up to during the five years he’s missing. And...okay, he never really kept up with that during the time he didn’t miss, either. 

“The Kree also have a peace treaty,” Gamora reminds him. “As long as we’re smart, which we will be, there is no reason for them to want to harm us. The Nova Corps are smart, despite Corman.” That actually makes him smile, which makes her smile too. “I know how hard won that treaty was. I may not know much of what happened in the intervening years, but the Nova Corps are not going to do anything to jeopardize that. We wouldn’t be doing this if they thought it was that big a risk.” 

He takes a deep breath and blows it out again, then has to pause for another moment as he realizes exactly what this is reminding him of. That insight is both a bit of a relief -- because it at least makes sense of the intensity of his emotions -- and also horrifying. He has to swallow hard before he’s finally able to speak. “I -- The last time we were preparing to go into danger like this, you made me promise you that I’d kill you. And then I -- I did it, or I tried to do it, even though it didn’t work, and I can’t --”

Gamora silences him by gently touching his lips. She doesn’t put her whole hand over them like before. This time she just uses the pad of her thumb, barely more than a brush, but it’s enough to make the words die on his tongue. 

“Peter,” she says softly, in that impossibly expressive tone that always hits him straight to his core. “Peter, you _did not_ fail me. I know that’s what you’re thinking, but you didn’t. You never could.”

“I -- how do you know that?” he whispers, his voice rough.

“I remember most of that day,” she reminds him. “You tried your hardest to keep your promise, one I never should have asked you to make in the first place. But you tried. There was nothing you could have done differently to change the outcome. Thanos was going to get me no matter what.” 

His throat works convulsively; he still has to fight back nausea at the reminder of that. 

“As for the rest of the times,” she continues. “I just know you. From what I remember, and from what I’ve experienced the last couple months with you… I know the lengths you’ll go for me, Peter. You could never fail me as long as you’re trying. And you’re always trying.” 

Just when he was thinking he might be able to get out of this conversation without crying. She swipes them away with her thumbs. His throat is still too tight to form words, and he doesn’t know quite what he’d say anyway. Thankfully, she’s not done reassuring. 

“And this isn’t gonna be like Knowhere, okay?” she says. “We’re gonna have backup, and a plan. There’s no Thanos. No Stones. Never again.”

He manages a nod and a shaky, “Right.” Then, even though it also reminds him of that day, he kisses her. 

Gamora kisses back gently, but she doesn’t deepen it or draw it out very long. Instead, she wraps an arm around his waist, pulls his head to her shoulder. It’s such a goddamn _familiar_ gesture that he feels the rest of his resolve crumble immediately, clinging to her as a soft sob slips out along with more tears. She doesn’t say anything, just runs both hands up and down his back in big, soothing circles. That particular gesture has always reminded him of his mother in the best way, calms him in spite of the worst storm of emotions that might be raging in his belly. 

He knows that going on this mission is the right decision. He _knows_ it, no matter what his fear is trying to tell him. Just a few months ago, he was despairing at the thought that Gamora might no longer care about right and wrong, might no longer be willing to do things like this with him. He should be -- no, he _is_ proud of her for allowing herself to become a steadfast Guardian again, even if it means that he has to face his fears. It’s what she wants, he reminds himself. What she needs. And he’ll do anything for her, even this. 

Taking a shaky breath, he raises his head and finds that he’s able to manage a weak smile as he meets her eyes. “Okay. Let’s go get those hive mind bastards.”


	35. Chapter 35

They make it to Icarro and pick up Corman in the Benatar without incident -- unless all the bickering and posturing that ensued once Corman was amongst them counts as an incident. As annoying as Gamora finds him, she’s grateful that his presence is providing a distraction for Peter. She can tell he’s still tense about all this, and arguing with Corman seems to be an outlet as well as a distraction. 

They’ve only just left Icarro and are en route to Hala when Dey’s call comes through. Gamora pulls it up so the holo takes up half the viewport, so Peter can still see where he’s piloting. Though they’re mostly flying through empty space right now. 

“Greetings, Denarian Dey,” Corman greets him formally, before any of them can speak. 

“Dey!” Peter says with a huge grin, decidedly informal. “How the hell are ya?”

Dey smiles indulgently and shakes his head. “I’m fine, as always, Quill. Are you approaching Kree territory?”

“Nah,” Rocket says. “We decided to take a detour. We’re taking Corman to the nearest sexbot brothel to see if getting laid will make him less of an asshole!” 

“I assure you that is not the case!” Corman says haughtily. Gamora turns so she can see the shade of red he’s turned. Peter and Rocket are both snickering. Drax is outright cackling. 

“Somehow I figured,” Dey says with an exasperated sigh. Gamora’s honestly not sure if he’s more exasperated by them or by Corman. 

“We thought about dropping Drax off on the nearest asteroid, though,” says Peter. He’s only half kidding about that, Gamora knows. Drax has continued going on about his grudge against the Kree to anyone who will listen, which is nobody at this point. She hopes that Drax actually knows better, despite his anger, though it’s obvious that Peter doesn’t trust him to be entirely in control of himself. And that’s probably justified too -- She doesn’t remember all that much of her interactions with Drax, but Peter knows his team well. And her newer interactions have been...well, enlightening. 

Oddly, she finds that she knows what Drax is thinking -- Remembers what Ronan did to his family, of course, because she was around for that before she’d ever met Peter or any of the others. But she also has a smattering of other memories, of hearing him talk about it, discussing it with him, even. Commiserating with him over what it was like to watch Thanos murder her own parents. She doesn’t have all of the context, but the important parts are all there, and she isn’t sure when it got to be that way.

“That I would have supported,” Corman says. 

“Suddenly I like the idea less,” Rocket mutters. 

“Ha!” Drax says triumphantly, as though that’s a victory he personally won. “Though you should like it not at all.” 

“That’s all--something, you guys,” Dey says, rubbing his forehead. “But listen, I’ve got some more information for you about the mission. Sorry I couldn’t get it to you all at once, but we wanted to get you heading to the location as soon as possible, in case we lost the signal.”

“That’s fine,” Nebula says. “We love going into situations where we have no parameters or details.” 

Dey ignores that and plows on. Gamora imagines he has a lot of experience ignoring their sarcastic comments. “Thankfully, the Sons do not seem to actually be going to Hala. They were either just passing by it or were there to gather information, but they’ve moved on now.”

Gamora breathes a sigh of relief and glances back at Peter to see that he’s visibly relaxed in his seat. He throws her a weak grin. It’s not like this means they’re out of the woods as far as the Kree are concerned, but not going directly to their capital is still something. 

“Where are they going then?” Peter asks. 

“Right now, they’re still in this star system, very near a moon called Enia,” Dey says. He pulls up a picture to show them, of a small, slightly misshapen moon. 

“Is this still Kree territory?” asks Nebula. 

“Yes,” says Dey. “Unfortunately.” He winces a bit and rubs at his temples.

“Excellent!” Drax exclaims before anyone can continue the actual productive conversation. “Then I can still have--”

He stops just as abruptly, and before Gamora’s even realized it, he’s snoring. She whips around in her chair, taking in the fact that Mantis has her hand on his arm, and her antennae are glowing. Mantis meets Gamora’s eyes and gives a little shrug before going back to her chair. She has to admit that’s downright unnerving, knowing that Mantis has that kind of power, that she herself would probably be unable to do anything about it if Mantis were to decide to put her to sleep. Then again, she trusts Mantis. And if this is going to stop Drax from repeatedly threatening a one-man war…

“Thank you, Mantis,” Dey says tiredly. “Yes, it’s still Kree territory. But it’s not populated. It can’t support much life long-term. Most of you will probably need to use breathing aids if you end up actually going onto the surface. The atmosphere is very thin.” 

“Then why the heck are the Sons going there?” Rocket asks incredulously. “If there’s nothing on it?”

“They could just be passing through,” Dey says. “But it seems unlikely, given that they’ve stopped so close to it. It’s most likely that they’ve discovered there’s something there. The Kree are known for keeping emergency caches of supplies scattered all throughout their territory. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a weapons cache there. Or at least if the Sons believe there is. It would be a good place for it, given that nobody ever goes there.” 

“That doesn’t mean shit to people _looking_ ,” Peter says. “Obviously, since even the Sons found it.”

“Theoretically,” Corman points out. “We do not actually know if there’s a cache there.”

“We have no reason to think the Sons are bad at getting intel,” Nebula says. “We should act on the assumption that there is one.”

“Exactly,” Dey says. Gamora doesn’t turn around to see how ruffled Corman is by that, but she bets that he is. “I’m sending you more exact coordinates, which will put you on the opposite side of the moon as the Sons’ ship, that way they don’t see you arrive.” 

“Awesome!” says Peter, in that overly bright tone he uses when he’s trying to cover up for feeling anxious or insecure. He looks calmer than he did before, when he’d thought they were going straight to Hala, but not totally relaxed. They are still in Kree territory, after all, and they are going to be facing the Sons if all goes according to plan. “A sneak attack!”

“Has the Nova Corps informed the Kree that we will be in their territory?” asks Corman, still in that stiff, overly formal voice. Gamora has a moment to wonder whether he uses it to cover something up, the same way Peter is right now. Then she decides that she doesn’t care. Peter is her concern, not this man who seems predisposed to bullying him whenever possible.

Dey sighs and rubs his temples again, looking like he’s getting a headache. He always kind of looks like he’s getting a headache, at least these days. “No. No, we did not. Because it is our hope that you can get in and get out without encountering any of the Kree or making an incident big enough to be noticed.”

“It still seems like it would be the right thing to do, from a diplomatic standpoint,” Corman sniffs. He clearly thinks he ought to be in charge of this operation, which he probably thinks about every operation.

“Good thing we ain’t going on a diplomatic mission, then!” Rocket says. 

“This ship is rather distinctive, though,” Nebula says thoughtfully. “And there is no guarantee this will be an in and out mission.” 

“I leave it to your discretion, then, if you want to let them know now,” Dey says with another sigh. “I’m sending you the link to the tracker, so you can see if their ship moves. Otherwise, please send me updates, and good luck.” Then he hangs up, the holo screen disappearing to give them back the full view of the quickly passing stars. 

Gamora glances back at Nebula, who still looks contemplative, then Peter, who does as well. Gamora sees the benefits and risks of both sides, though she’s inclined to trust her sister’s judgement here. She doesn’t seem certain either, though. 

“Let’s play it by ear, huh?” Peter says. “We can see how this place looks when we get there. We might not even need to be there for more than a minute if the Sons move on, so there’s no point in risking ruffling anyone’s feathers.”

“I agree,” Gamora says quickly, and loudly, heading off Corman before he can surely say something contradictory. Nebula gives a simple nod, and Rocket shrugs. Groot is still playing his game. Mantis would have agreed with any option, Gamora’s pretty sure. Drax is snoring loudly. 

“Good!” Peter says. “It’s settled. Now! Let’s have some tunes for the rest of the ride, huh? It’s way too serious in here.”

“This _is_ a serious mission,” Corman protests. “There is no such thing as being ‘too serious’ when one is preparing to enter hostile territory, to risk one’s life for --”

“Now see, that’s where you’re wrong,” says Peter, though Gamora thinks he probably would have said that no matter what words had come out of Corman’s mouth. “In fact, double wrong. First, nobody is going to be risking their lives on my watch! We’ve had more than enough of that for the rest of -- pretty much forever. Second, there is _so_ such a thing as too serious, and it’s exactly what you are -- also pretty much all the time, forever.”

“I am a professional,” Corman says haughtily. Also totally predictably. “That means being serious, something that I would not expect you to --”

Peter interrupts again, this time by turning on the music, much too loudly for Corman to talk over unless he wants to start shouting. For a second Gamora expects that he _is_ going to do that. Instead, she watches the conflict race over his face -- probably the knowledge that if he starts yelling, he’ll be directly contradicting his claim to professionalism.

He mercifully decides not to yell. Someone might actually punch him, and Gamora’s not feeling too inclined to stop anyone that wants to. 

She turns to give Peter a supportive smile. He smiles back, already humming along to the opening notes of the song. “This is Sam Cooke,” he informs her. He’s close enough that he doesn’t have to shout to speak to her, though he does raise his voice a bit. 

That explains why it sounds familiar to her when he starts singing. They’d danced to a Sam Cooke song not that long ago, when she’d remembered _another_ time they’d done so. Peter had said he’s one of the greatest Earth singers of all time, and she has to say she agrees with him, though her knowledge is relatively limited. The melody is pleasant and upbeat, and soothing at the same time. 

_Come on and let the good times roll_   
_We’re gonna stay here til we soothe our souls_

She wishes suddenly that they were by themselves, not in a ship with all their friends, in their seats, on their way to a job. The urge to dance with him is strong; she enjoyed it far more than she ever thought she would that time, and the other times that she remembers. 

Not much she can do about the location right now, though. So she turns back in her seat and allows herself to get lost in the memories and fantasies of dancing with Peter. She even finds herself mouthing some of the lyrics, though she’s got no conscious memory of having heard this song before. 

The next thing she knows, she’s surprised by the sound of her own voice in her ears. For a second she has the oddest sense of depersonalization, like her body, her consciousness, really might not be entirely her own. Like something inside of her might be -- shifting, or merging, or coming back into focus. Like that other -- no, same -- self might be here with her right now, might actually be the one singing these words, like if she opens her eyes, she might see herself. 

For a long moment, her perception shifts until everything narrows back down again to nothing but the sound of her heart beating in her ears, and then she realizes that the ship has gone silent, or as silent as it ever gets with the group around. But the song has ended and another one hasn’t started. Also, someone is calling her name.

Gamora shakes herself, opens her eyes and finds Peter and Nebula both on their feet, standing over her. They both look vaguely concerned, although Peter also has a distinctly hopeful look on his face. 

“Sorry!” she says hastily. “Sorry, I’m fine. I just -- I was _singing._ ” She lowers her voice on that last, though the others appear to have filed out of the cockpit when the music stopped. 

“It’s hardly the first time,” Nebula says. “You are nearly as insufferable about it as Quill.”

“It was to me,” Gamora whispers. “It was like… Like I was singing without realizing it. Like I knew the words without thinking about it.”

“That’s how songs are sometimes,” Peter says encouragingly. “When I first got the Zune, I heard some songs on it for the first time in almost thirty years, and I remembered all the words!”

“We will figure out this memory thing,” Nebula promises her, ignoring that. But then the sound of yelling reaches their ears, and Gamora looks out the view port, finding that they’ve actually landed on the moon already. That decision must have been made when she was zoning out to the music. “But we should probably go solve this problem first.”

“Right, yes,” she says quickly, standing up. Nebula starts walking out of the cockpit and she and Peter trail slightly behind. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Peter whispers to her. Nebula might still be able to hear them, but that doesn’t bother her. 

“I’m fine,” Gamora assures him. “Really. It was just a strange moment.” 

There’s no time to discuss it further, because the yelling has grown in volume, and it’s time to be Guardians again. The others are all off the ship, all of them in their translucent-blue space suits. Gamora and Nebula haven’t bothered, as the atmosphere is not thin enough to bother their enhanced lungs. Peter activates his helmet when they step out. 

Gamora experiences another weird moment where it feels like something is converging in her mind. It isn’t the first time she’s seen Peter in his mask, isn’t the first time she’s felt the slight sinking feeling of loss when she suddenly can’t see the warmth of his eyes. But suddenly she’s remembering other times too, lots of other times, too many to even to be aware of all of the details. She also remembers the vague awareness of Peter putting the mask on her, of the way it had felt against the deathly chill of space, the certainty of her own death -- at Nebula’s hand? How odd to think about that now. 

She doesn’t get too much more of an opportunity to think about that, though, because it takes about three seconds to see where the yelling is coming from. There’s a heavily-armored building a few hundred yards away, which Gamora thinks probably explains the Sons heading in this direction. There are also two Kree guards standing outside the entrance, currently facing off with Corman.

“Did you let Corman go over there by himself?” Peter asks the rest of the team incredulously. They’re all watching the scene with varying degrees of apprehension and amusement -- or disinterest, in Groot’s case. 

“Yeah,” Rocket says with a snort. He’s all amusement. “We’re hoping they’ll lock him up and Dey won’t make us go rescue him this time.”

“Well, now _I’m_ hoping he doesn’t end up starting this war,” Nebula says. Gamora privately thinks Corman is a lot less likely to do that than half of this team. She glances at Drax, who seems calmer than before, though not completely so. She’s certain Mantis’s hand on his shoulder has everything to do with that. Her antennae are glowing. 

“Let’s go over and help,” Gamora says, already starting to head that way, Peter jogging for a couple steps to walk level with her. 

“I am Groot!” he says with a pout evident in his voice, though Gamora can hear him shuffle along behind her with the rest of them. 

“Don’t worry,” Nebula says. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to watch Corman get beat up one of these days.”

They approach the building quickly, and once they get close Gamora can make out what they’re saying. 

“I assure you,” Corman is saying, “that we are not responsible for whatever security breach your system endured. In fact, this only supports our theory that you are about to suffer a robbery attempt.” 

The guards have few distinguishing features, both male, both uniformed, both physically fit. But one is a bit taller than the other, and that one appears to be taking the lead in this confrontation. He’s also holding himself ridiculously stiffly, with his hands clasped behind his back. That makes him the mirror image of Corman, the two of them struggling to look commanding and professional as they yell at one another. If the stakes of this mission weren’t so very high, Gamora thinks it would be funny. As it is, Peter glances her way and she thinks she can sense him rolling his eyes, though of course she can’t see them through the mask.

“As if I would believe anything of the sort, coming from a Xandarian,” the guard scoffs. “And a Nova Corps officer, no less.” He looks sideways at his shorter companion, who definitely does visibly roll his eyes. The haughtiness in his voice is also reminiscent of Corman, to the point where it almost appears that they might be trying to have a petty-off. At least these guards don’t appear to be of Ronan’s radical purist mentality, though they certainly aren’t any fans of Xandar.

Corman looks so offended by that comment that Gamora becomes concerned about the limits of his professionalism, and that Groot may get his wish to see Corman in a fight sooner than any of them thought. 

Peter steps in, though, holding his arms out in a gesture that looks like pleading or surrender, but Gamora thinks it’s to make himself more visible, to distract the guards from Corman. She takes a step closer to be ready to defend him should she need to. 

“Hey,” Peter says. She knows he’s got that disarming smile on, but it’s useless under the mask. “None of _us_ are Xandarians or Nova Corps.” 

The guards both look them all over and scowl. “ _Guardians_ ,” the shorter one says as if it’s a dirty word. “You might as well be.” 

“You have thirty seconds to vacate this moon,” the taller one says with authority. “Before we make you. Or you will be buried here. Your choice.”

“Psh,” Rocket says dismissively. “I could take you with one paw tied behind my back!”

“What he _means_ ,” Peter says hastily, “is that we’re here to help you! The people who are after your weapons are super, super evil, and we can’t let them get a hold of tech as advanced as yours. They want to re-do what Thanos did.”

The guards exchange glances. Gamora wonders if one or both of them survived the snap. 

“If that is the case,” the taller one says stiffly, “we are more than capable of handling it ourselves.” 

“I assure you, you are not,” says Corman, apparently deciding that he and the Guardians can agree on this point, if nothing else. 

The tall guard moves his hands from behind his back, and Gamora worries that he is about to pull a weapon; her own hand goes instinctively to the hilt of her sword. She sees Peter do the same thing with one of his blasters. But then the guard crosses his arms over his chest and raises his chin, a petulant mirror image of Corman once again. “I assure you, we _are_. And there will be no security incident with ‘super, super evil’ people anyway, that is a fantasy you made up to distract from the fact that you are trespassing in Kree territory.”

“No,” says Corman. “It is not a fantasy, it is the truth. We tracked them here. And I _asked_ my commanding officer to make a diplomatic appeal to your forces, to notify you that we were coming, but --”

“But hey!” Peter breaks in, back to that smooth tone. “Hey, man, it was an emergency so instead of wasting time on politics, we came here to make sure you all were safe.”

The guards don’t look very impressed by that, though Gamora thinks it was a pretty good save, at least temporarily. It ends up not really mattering, though, because Drax chooses that moment to suddenly make a disoriented, startled sort of noise and shout, “Hey, where are we?” as he looks around in confusion and anger. Mantis took her hand off his shoulder, perhaps overwhelmed by the tension in the group, or just because she was tired of doing it. 

Or perhaps she knew, somehow, that they were about to want him awake and aware. 

Gamora and Nebula hear it first. They both freeze at the same time and begin scanning the sky around them. Drax is still yelling confused questions, which is at least distracting the guards, but Gamora needs to be able to hear right now so she snaps, “Quiet! All of you!” with enough authority that even the guards listen and look at her curiously. 

Rocket must hear it a second later because he stiffens too, sniffing the air. 

“We need cover--” Gamora begins to warn them, but then the noise becomes loud enough that everyone can hear, and quickly after close enough that everyone can see it: a ship, careening towards them, intent obvious. 

“Prepare to fire!” the taller guard yells to the other, both of them training their weapons on the incoming ship. 

Both of the guards draw their blasters, which are clearly not designed to take on a ship. The Kree have plenty of very sophisticated weapons, Gamora knows, and probably even right here in the bunker they’re standing in front of. But they don’t have any of those now, just one small gun each, which would look sort of comical if it weren’t for the fact that they might all be about to die. 

Gamora draws her sword but feels silly as she does it, knowing it’s likely to be about as effective as the guards’ weapons. Maybe even less so, unless she somehow manages to get close enough to slice off some important part of that ship. She wishes now that _she_ had a gun -- or more like some type of a cannon. Despite the imminent danger, she gets another strong flash of memory, one she can’t shut out or ignore. Peter’s face, just the tiniest bit petulant, and unbearably attractive nonetheless. And his voice in her memory as well: _’It’s just, swords were your thing, and guns were mine. But I guess we’re both doing guns now.’_

She can’t help but laugh slightly hysterically at that memory, and she feels Peter’s eyes on her. She can tell he’s looking at her curiously despite his features being blocked by the mask, so she says, “I kinda wish guns were my thing right now.” 

“And that,” Rocket says, before Peter can respond, “is why you people need me around!” 

He has a gun, of course, larger than either Peter’s or the guards’. But Gamora still doesn’t see how that’s going to make a difference when fighting a _ship_. 

Then he fires it, and out comes a bullet so large that it might as well be a missile. It hits its target right as the ship’s own guns come out. It doesn’t cause the explosion Gamora was sort of hoping for, but it _does_ knock a significant chunk off of the side, derailing its course and causing it to crash into the ground, still skidding towards them. 

“Ha!” Drax yells triumphantly, as if that’s solved all of their problems. The ship was so close that the pieces that flew off of it after Rocket hit it are now raining down towards them. 

Nebula hasn’t even finished yelling _”Get down!”_ before Gamora throws herself at Peter, knocking him to the ground and shielding him with her body. He yelps, but in surprise, not pain. She is _not_ about to take any chances on Peter and explosions again, though this one is not nearly as bad. She feels a few pieces of metal hit her back that won’t do more than leave a few bruises. 

“Don’t!” Peter gasps, though it’s muffled by his mask, and his own rapid breathing. She can hear his heart thundering now that they’re so close together. She isn’t sure if she’s ever heard it quite this fast before, and she immediately understands that it means he’s panicking again, absolutely terrified. “Don’t, don’t, please--”

“Stay down,” she hisses, keeping him pinned though he’s struggling a bit against her attempts to keep him safe. It’s easy, with her adrenaline flowing the way it is right now, and with her comparatively greater strength. That only makes her think of how fragile he is, though, how much he needs her protection. She doubles down, holding him where he is until the debris has finished falling. It’s probably only a matter of seconds, but it feels like an eternity. 

Peter scrambles to get up the instant she rolls off of him, but it’s considerably more of a struggle for him to get to his feet than it is for her. She offers her hand, pulls him up, relieved when he turns out to not be injured, just off-balance and apparently shocked out of touch with his own limbs.

“Gamora,” he breathes, panic evident in his voice. He takes her by the shoulders, looking her up and down, probably checking for injuries. “Gamora, what the hell?”

“I am stronger than you!” she reminds him, but lets him do his injury check. Not like she isn’t doing her own. “And you have done the same to me, despite that.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but then Rocket says, “We’re all fine, thanks for caring,” and she turns to see the others are all scrambling up as well. Drax is already running full speed for the grounded ship, knives out, yelling. 

“Come on!” Nebula says, following right behind him. 

Dangerous situation, probably not the best place to have this argument with Peter. Sort of happy to have that excuse, she runs off after Nebula and the others, Peter right behind her. 

The Sons’ ship is just a little bit bigger than the Benatar, but seems to have held a lot of people, as there are several Sons currently pouring out of it, holding guns and firing as they approach. Gamora ducks the shots easily. 

Even before she gets close enough to go after them with her sword, one of them is taken down by blaster fire. She doesn’t know if it was from Peter or the guards, who have given up their quarrel, at least for now, in the face of the attack. She has a second to wonder whether it’s overkill to -- well, to aim to kill them -- but then one of them only just misses Peter with his shot and she doesn’t hesitate to jump and stab him before he can even turn and aim his gun towards her. 

Peter is watching her when she turns to find him again, to make sure that he’s still unhurt. For a second she feels a wave of guilt -- not so much at the fact that she just killed one of the Sons, because they’re evil scum who have tried to kill her and her family on more than one occasion, who would wipe out half the galaxy if they could just find a way to do it, and would call it a victory. And because that particular Son was threatening Peter, would maybe even have hit him with a laser blast had his reflexes not kicked in at the last possible second. But she does worry that maybe she _should_ regret it, that Peter might expect her to. That maybe there’s something inside of her that’s fundamentally missing, some deficient sense of how to be one of the good guys, how to be a Guardian.

“What?” she asks, when the tension her own mind’s building up has grown unbearable and he’s still looking at her. She remembers now all the jobs they did together right after she’d rejoined the team, how he’d always specified that they were not fighting to kill.

Peter just shakes his head, though, in a way that doesn’t seem like disappointment. “It’s just -- really hot watching you fight. ‘Specially with your sword.”

Gamora rolls her eyes as relief floods through her. “Ogle later. Focus on not getting hurt now.”

He grins and says, “Yes, dear.” Then he raises his blaster and shoots one of the Sons close behind her, who she probably should have been paying attention to. She spares another second to give him a grateful smile, then re-focuses on the fight at hand. 

“Prepare to be destroyed by Drax!” Drax yells, as he begins viciously stabbing at one of the Sons who had been shooting at Groot. Groot appears to have been holding his own and is irritated at the interruption. Gamora thinks they’re lucky Drax at least has an avenue for this aggression right now. 

Rocket’s gun thankfully seems to have more capabilities than just _shoot giant missile_ and he’s using it to get one of the Sons who is standing on top of the ship and shooting at them from up there. Mantis is putting one of them to sleep, of course; he’s trying to aim his gun up at her but she has it under control. 

Nebula is fighting another one. She’s neatly dodging his shots, but Gamora goes to help her anyway, because there aren’t any Sons that aren’t currently being engaged. There really aren’t that many of them, not as many as she’d thought there were. Come to think of it -- which she does, even as she swings her sword and knocks the gun out of the Son’s hand -- she could have sworn she saw more Sons than this emerging from the ship. 

As soon as she’s registered that Nebula has this Son down -- pinned to the ground and currently having all intelligent life shocked out of him by a pair of charged batons to the head -- Gamora turns to do another visual sweep of the battlefield. She has the sudden sense that something is wrong. It isn’t a fully formed thought yet, just the sort of instinct that’s come from her years under Thanos, from living in constant danger. 

There were _definitely_ more of them than they’re fighting now. She didn’t count but she can picture the image of them emerging clearly. And there aren’t all that many bodies on the ground, either. It takes her another beat to verify that they aren’t disintegrating or something upon death, though she’s pretty sure that’s not how this species works. And no, definitely not, because there’s the crumpled body of the first one she took down. 

She turns farther, though she’s careful to watch her back, not to get distracted despite the fact that none of the Sons appear to be free to come attack her right now. And then she spots them -- at least a half dozen clustered around a side entrance to the nearby building, surely working on breaking in. 

She curses, a habit she definitely picked up from Peter or one of the others. “Head back to the building!” she orders. “This is a diversion, they’re trying to break in!” A series of curses from the others follow. 

There’s only a couple of Sons left who haven’t been incapacitated. Gamora can only hope someone stays behind to finish them off -- her money is on Drax -- because she only pays enough attention to make sure Peter is with her before she takes off running back towards the building. 

“Those assholes!” Rocket complains as they make their dash back. “Causing a diversion is our thing! What a buncha copyin’ jerks!” 

Gamora highly doubts they’re the only team in the galaxy to use that strategy, but she’s too focused on the Sons to have that argument right now. She does hear Groot say something to that effect, though, before it’s drowned out by the sound of Rocket’s gun. 

“Take this, you copycraps!” he yells. Well, they were probably not going to be able to sneak up on them anyway. Not running towards them in all this open space, plus that weird hive mind thing they have going on. 

“It’s copy _cats_!” Peter tells him, joining in with his blasters. He hits one of the Sons, but he doesn’t go down yet. 

“What the flarg is a cat?” Rocket yells back. He still has his gun raised, but he’s clearly a bit distracted by this conversation, which makes Gamora wish that Peter had also resisted the urge to get into it right now. The last thing they need is to lose track of the Sons again, to be outsmarted because they’re too busy bickering among themselves. 

“You know,” says Peter, like this is any other conversation, like they aren’t in the middle of an active firefight. Then again, it’s not like this is the first time she’s seen this team have a wildly inappropriate conversation in ridiculous circumstances. “You know, it’s a -- mammal, I think? It lives on Earth, and it’s small and furry and --”

“If this is gonna be a joke about me,” Rocket interrupts, “I’m gonna kill you myself.”

Peter snorts. “Good thing it’s not, then. Cats are like...pretty and dainty and they say ‘meow.’ That sounds nothing like you, does it?”

“Well I certainly ain’t pretty or dainty,” Rocket agrees. “Why’re they copiers?”

Peter frowns, that look that tells Gamora he’s never considered that in earnest before. “I dunno, man, that’s just the saying.”

“Can we debate this later?” Nebula says, more vitriol than question. 

They’re nearly upon the Sons now, nearly close enough for those of them that fight close to be able to start attacking. The Sons don’t seem especially concerned about that; only a couple of them are actually shooting back at them, providing cover for the ones working on breaking into the door. They’re standing around them in a way that means they can’t really see what they’re doing to break in, but the fact that they haven’t managed it yet means they can hopefully stop them before they do. 

Gamora’s bracing herself to jump so she can bring her sword down on one of the shooting Sons on her way down -- with the fleeting thought that Peter will probably like watching her do that -- when she hears an odd, out of place _click_ noise, and the Sons begin to scramble and run away from them. No, not them; they’re running away from the door. 

Rocket apparently heard the noise too and obviously recognizes what it is, because he yells, “ _Shit!_ Get back!” right before the door, or more accurately, the small bomb that must be attached to it somewhere, explodes. 

Gamora has just enough time to leap to the side and try to get Peter down to the ground again, but it doesn’t quite work out because he’s doing the same thing. He tries to grab her at the same time she tries to grab him, and instead of getting to push him to the ground to protect him, she ends up in an awkward jumble with him as they hit the ground at an odd angle. 

The wave of heat that washes over them reminds her of the explosion in the prison, but much larger -- larger even than the explosion that had finally gotten the monkey-monsters on Liri IV to retreat, and that had also flattened and singed a large swath of the landscape. That sends a fresh wave of panic through her, and Gamora uses that to propel her into motion again, to roll them over and get most of her body over Peter’s. He struggles again as the debris rains down around them, as the shockwave of the blast makes her ears pop and her head spin. Still, she holds him there firmly, desperate to protect him and somewhat comforted by the knowledge that she’s accomplished that to the best of her ability.

But then the blast is over, the debris is done falling, the heat recedes, and Peter is still struggling. Gamora lets him up, figuring that he’ll want to check her for injuries. Only that isn’t what he does -- Instead, he curls into a fetal position, tugging at his mask, which she realizes with a cold stab of horror has partially melted. He’s gasping beneath it, though whether it’s because the thing is suffocating him or just no longer providing enough oxygen, she can’t be sure.

For a moment she’s so overtaken with panic that she can’t move or speak. Peter gets the mask fully off and it falls to the ground beside his head, but he’s still breathing the same, confirming that the problem is that the mask isn’t providing oxygen. 

“Peter,” she breathes. She’s still panicking, but the fact that he needs her help shocks her system enough to get her moving again. She touches the side of his face and turns his head so she can look at him, as if that will help any. All it does is show her the side of his face where the mask had burned; the skin is red and angry, a mild burn compared to the ones on his back from the last explosion. She can’t believe she’s wishing for those burns right now, but those had not been life-threatening. Lack of air is. 

Her mind races, thinking of how to help him. She’s aware of nothing else; the world could be on fire -- hell, her body could be on fire -- and she wouldn’t notice or care. All she can focus on is Peter. How long had he been without oxygen? How long had she been lying over him, supposedly protecting him but actually harming him? How long could Terrans survive without oxygen? Will he make it long enough for her to carry him back to the ship? If he doesn’t…she can’t even think that far. There is no other side of Peter not making it. 

“Don’t worry,” she tells him, since she seems to be doing enough of that for the both of them. “I’m gonna get you back to the ship.” 

She’s in the process of hauling him up so she can carry him when Rocket, who she only notices when he’s about a foot away, that’s how unaware she’s been of everything else, slaps a circle to Peter’s chest and one of those clear-bluish spacesuits materializes around him. Gamora can feel his chest expand as he takes a deep breath. 

“I always keep spares nowadays,” Rocket says darkly. 

“Nowadays?” Gamora echoes, with the distinct feeling that she’s missing something. There’s definitely emotion behind that statement, something major for Rocket to be reacting with this much of an open display of vulnerability. 

“Forget it,” Rocket snaps, the dark edge in his voice amplified by her question. He shakes his head. “Just when I think you might’a gotten back with the program. My bad.”

“Hey!” Gamora begins, but she doesn’t get the chance to say anything further, because Rocket turns his gun on one of the few remaining Sons, shooting off a salvo of laser blasts that are a definitive end to this conversation. 

She’ll have more to say to him later, she thinks, but right now they’re still in danger and Peter is still on the ground, breathing hard. She turns to find Nebula, makes eye contact with her sister.

“Cover us,” she says tersely, before crouching down again to shield Peter with her body as much as she can. She doesn’t go down on top of him now, though, doesn’t dare subject him to any of her weight.

Instead, she checks him over for other injuries she might have missed, keeping her ears focused on the fight behind them. They don’t appear to be in any distress, far outnumbering the remaining Sons. She’s too consumed by her remaining panic to care much anyway. 

Peter’s breathing, and conscious, both good things. He’s at least wearing his leather jacket this time, and though that and his pants are both scuffed up, she doesn’t think any injuries reached his skin, aside from his face. That doesn’t mean nothing is broken, of course. 

“Are you okay?” she asks him, running her hands down his arms to feel for broken bones. 

“I’m fine,” he gasps, moving to get up. He’s wincing, and she thinks -- hopes -- it’s just from the burn on his face. The superficial burns are often the worst, she knows, and she’s not surprised it’s hurting him that much. 

“Peter, don’t get up yet,” she says, not daring to use her body to force him down again. Instead she can only get up as he does so her body is still shielding him as much as possible. She turns her head quickly to check on the progress of the fight, just in time to see Mantis put the final Son to sleep, then jump off his back with a pleased grin. 

There’s no more shooting happening, so she turns back to Peter, her heart still pounding as she considers the possibility that he could be more injured than she realizes. That it could be her fault. Even if _all_ that’s wrong is the superficial burn on his face, that still feels solidly her fault, and awful. Still, he’s upright now despite her plea not to move, and nothing appears odd in his posture. His breathing is starting to slow too, the sound of it and his heart rate mostly normal, though perhaps still a bit rapid. That’s probably because he’s uncomfortable, and she can’t blame him.

“I’m sorry,” she breathes, her voice catching in her throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t --”

“Not now,” says Peter, surprising her. There’s a hard edge in his voice that she hasn’t heard in a while, not since those early weeks where they were both confused and hurt. It’s anger, she thinks, or maybe just a bitter kind of disappointment -- but she’s fairly certain it’s directed toward her.

“Peter --” she starts again, but he shoulders past her, going to gather the others, suddenly back to being the captain again. 

“Okay, Guardians,” he calls, drawing everyone’s focus on the first try for once. “Everybody all right?”

“I am Groot!” Groot exclaims with distinct pride. 

“Yes, except for the Sons!” Mantis echoes with the same pride. She and Groot high-five. 

“All injuries minor,” Corman says formally, as though he’s reporting on a mission briefing. The guards, and everyone else, echo that sentiment, though most less formally. 

Then a triumphant shout comes from behind them, and Drax comes running up to them with both of his knives brandished and a huge grin on his face. Gamora feels a stab of guilt that she’d kind of forgotten he was back at the Sons’ ship dealing with that. “I have single-handedly vanquished the remaining Sons!” 

That pronouncement is ruined by Nebula pointing behind him and saying in her unimpressed voice, “Really?” 

They all turn in time to see the Sons’ ship taking off from the moon’s surface. It appears a little unstable from whatever damage Rocket’s gun did to it, but it’s stable enough to fly. 

“Shit,” Rocket says and raises said gun, but the ship is already too far away. That doesn’t stop him from firing pointlessly into space, anyway. He repeats the curse. 

“Now do you believe us?” Corman asks the guards, the most formal _I told you so_ Gamora has ever heard. 

The guards exchange a look and, with extreme reluctance, the tall one says, “We thank you for the warning, and the assistance. Now, if you will excuse us, we need to see about repairing this door, and warning our fellows about these _Sons of Thanos_


End file.
